Easter 2014

Happy Easter to you all!  We had an amazing Easter at our house!

I promised Ava that the day before Easter, we would go and get mani/pedi's with my sisters and Sophie. I think she was more excited about getting a pedicure than she was about Easter. We all met up at Pink Polish for a girls morning of pampering. Ava loved Avery moment of it. She talked to the lady that was doing her nails and she was also talking to Sophie who sat next to her. It was a lot of fun and something that we will do again.






For Easter this year, we put clues in plastic eggs and did a little hunt to find their baskets. The Easter bunny left the first egg in our bathroom with 2 chocolate bunnies. Each clue had them doing some sort of activity to get the next clue. This one had them doing push ups.



Once they found their baskets, they got to eat their jelly beans for breakfast. I mean it is Easter and all!  Noah was all over that.




Ava got a pet shop palace that she has been wanting forever and Noah got some airplanes.

Everyone came over to our house for brunch. After we ate we had the Easter egg hunt outside. Note to self: no chocolate in the eggs. Haha. It was hot by the time we got to the egg hunt and even though their were only those hard shell mini eggs, some of them cracked and the chocolate melted. The kids had fun. Alex was upset because he was told to leave the easy ones for the little kids so he didn't participate.  Ava felt bad and gave her some of her eggs and then started handing out eggs to everyone. So sweet.



So my nephew put some pink chalk in the fountain and it turned the water pink. lol! It was kinda nice and pink for Easter. I also have to work on my picture taking skills on my Ipad. I have a finger in almost every picture from Easter.

Everyone was sugared up and I think it was a success.

March 2014 Thus Far....

So it will probably be easier to do a monthly blog than try to keep up. So here is what we have been up to this month.

Ava had her 5 year doctor appointment. Just the usual check up except this time we decided to get her MMR shot. I didn't tell her ahead of time because she is such a worry wort and would have stressed about it and asked a million questions. So I waited until the doctor was done and THEN told her. She immediately started to cry and rub Bobo and ask a ton of questions. When the Nurse finally came in and gave her her shot, she screamed and cried for about 5 seconds and then was much better. She got a princess band aid and that made her happy. Overall, she is doing great. She is in the 64th percentile for height and weight. The Dr said to keep an eye on her sight as she was 20/30, but part of that could have been the letters are the way she is used to seeing them and part just may be that she has Leptuch eyes!


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Mike took both kids to church for Ash Wednesday. Noah doesn't usually go to church because the last time Mike took him, they had to come home early because he wouldn't sit still. He REALLY wanted to go and promised to be good, so Mike took him and he did great.




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Lordy, Lordy, look who turned 40!.....Mike! We had a non eventful 40th birthday. We went to Whole Foods for dinner and a drink. Or should I say Mike did and we all went along for the ride.


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My nephew, Sam, turned One on the same day as Mike turned 40. They had a Jake and the Neverland Pirates Party.
Here is Sam after eating half of his cake!

Noah put on the glasses!!


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The kids went to the dentist. This was Ava's second time and Noah's first time. They needed it. Overall, good bill of teeth! The Dentist said that Ava is going to be getting her 6 year old molars soon. I didn't know they got 6 year old molars. Let the drama ensue!!!


Noah did good except when the Dentist came in, he made Mike and I both hold a hand and then he didn't really like the tooth brushing part because the toothpaste was gritty. But other than that, he did awesome!


They both got to hold and use the water suction thing!
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My sister's babysitter was on break for 2 weeks and she needed me to watch my nephew for a couple of hours 2 days this past week. Because he is such a good baby, I didn't mind. One day we went for a walk. That was an eye opener. 3 kids, uhhhh....no thanks. 2 is hard enough for me, but it was fun.

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Ava is a DeMario. She loves to eat butter straight out of the container....


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A little Friday night fun at Whole Foods, Leptuch style.

Ava's 5th Birthday

Ok, so hopefully this works. (I changed the date to be Ava's birthday, so I don't look like a bad mom and blogger. LOL!)

So Ava turned 5! Can you believe it? I can't.

Ava had been battling yet another sickness on her birthday. She was out the entire week at school and had to miss on her actual birthday. She was running a fever the day before, so I couldn't send her, even though she was feeling a bit better on her birthday. We had to hang out at home that day. Noah started feeling sick as well as Mike. Grammy and Papa Dee even came down to spend the day with her.

For the kids birthday, they get to chose what they want for dinner. I can cook their favorite meal or we can go out. Ava really wanted to go to Peter Piper Pizza. She has been there twice for a friend of ours birthday and she loved it. Not sure why, she can't really play any of the games, but she does. Unfortunately we couldn't go because everyone was sick. So we opted for chicken fingers from Fry's.

She opened presents and we had some cupcakes that were left over from Noah's birthday party. (Shhh. don't tell her.) I froze some and just put frosting on them. Everyone said they were great tasting).


She is really into arts and crafts and LOVED the necklace making kits she got!! (Me, not so much, there were beads everywhere for days!!)

We also got her a bigger bike that was girly. She loves it.

Here are a few of Ava's favorite things:

Favorite food: Bacon Sandwiches
Favorite TV show: Doc McStuffins
Favorite thing to do: Color and Craft
Favorite color: purple
What do you want to do for your birthday next year: Go to Grandma Nini's house on an airplane
What do you want to be when you grow up: a Home Decorator/artist

It was a great birthday. We ended up going to Peter Piper Pizza the following weekend. It was nice because it was empty. Again, most games there are for a little bit older kids, so Mike and I got to play some games. haha! They had fun anyway. Ava's favorite thing was riding the car!





We ended up having her birthday party on the Saturday right after her birthday but because everyone was sick, we had just immediate family over. We didn't want to risk getting everyone else sick. It was small and intimate and very nice.

Hope next year is as wonderful as this was, without the sicknesses!!!

Noah's 3rd Birthday and Party

Can you believe that my boy is 3?!?!? Time does fly, yet it feels just like yesterday. Time is weird like that.

Unfortunately, with Noah's birthday being so close to Christmas we don't play it up as much as we do for Ava's or maybe it is the 2nd kid syndrome. But all of a sudden, it was Noah's birthday.

We had a low key day. We headed to Barnes and Noble for our free cupcake. We got there at 9am because they used to open then, but apparently they don't open until 10 am now:( So we headed to the play area. Of course, Noah stood by my side and watched and Ava played around and made a friend.


We had the cupcake after lunch. I made his favorite dinner, meatballs! Then we all walked down to Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt.


He wanted to wear all those necklaces!!
When we came home, we opened presents. For whatever reason he was being shy and had Ava help him open his gifts.
I can't believe how big he is getting. He is still only in the 45th percentile for weight!! He is talking so much and having actual conversations too. He has really hit that why stage and he won't take "because" for an answer. The other day he said," Mommy, can I take a pet home from the store?" I replied "uhhh...NOOOO!" He said, "why" and I said "because" and walked away. He said "don't walk away, talk to me". HAHA.. he didn't like my answer and wanted to know why. He won't stop asking questions until he is satisfied with his answer.

The following weekend, we celebrated his birthday with friends and family. The weather was gorgeous and we had lots of kids there to celebrate with.

The kids helping me decorate the cupcakes!!

He couldn't wait to have his cupcake. He and Ava were picking out their cupcakes as soon as they were decorated.

We recently cut down on the amount of sugar that Noah gets because we noticed that his behavior was getting out of control. The second half of December the kids were sick and they drank a lot of juice and pretty much got to eat whatever they felt like so that we could get calories in them. We had finally had enough and one day just said no to the juice and all the added sugars. I can definitely say that his behavior has improved and you can tell when he/they have sugar because they are both cranky. We have even had to cut down on his fruit consumption. There were days when all he would eat would be fruit, applesauce, raisins, juice, packaged bars etc.. You see, sugar. We don't buy anymore bars either. They only get one when we go to Whole Foods and they go to kids club, but only if they have been good.

Noah has also been waking up a lot at night. Mike started this thing where he would lay with him for like 2 minutes before he went to bed, but they we noticed that when he would wake up at night, he would want us to lay with him to go back to sleep. He would wake 4-5 times a night. It was getting out of control, so we had to stop that too. Again, I think it has helped, but he still wakes up at least once most nights.

He is really into his trucks and trains and LOVEs to play outside in the dirt. He really loves all the fresh veggies from the garden.


He loves to come in from being out and about and he takes off his shoes and pants. He pretty much lives in his underwear. If you have seen that new show, the Goldbergs, he is just like Murray Goldberg in that sense!!

He is still not night potty trained. I think he is just lazy. If we take them away, I think he wouldn't have a problem, but I just want sleep and don't want to have to deal with getting up to take him to the bathroom at night or dealing with the first couple of nights that he would wet the bed and having to change the sheets at night. We are going to start getting serious on this soon because I am sick of buying diapers!!

Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013 has come and gone. Ours was really nice despite Ava being sick.(See the next post)

Our traditional Christmas Eve is spent at my step brother, Brian's house, but the kids were sick and we had to stay home.

We wrote a letter to Santa and left cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.

It says "Dear Santa, I hope you enjoy our cookies. Please give the carrots to the reindeer. Take care of Freddy for us! Love Ava and Noah Leptuch"

After we put the kids into bed, Mike and I, I mean Santa and his helper, put out all the presents for Christmas morning. While we were doing it, Ava actually got up and needed something. Luckily she didn't see anything.

We woke up around 5am Christmas morning. Ava ended up sleeping in my bed with me that night and Mike slept in Ava's bed because Grammy and Papa Dee were here sleeping in the guest bedroom. She was still at 103, so we tried to get her to take her medicine while we waited for Noah to wake up. Because the kids had been sick, I wasn't going to wake anybody up. To entice her to take her medicine, I gave her her stocking to open. She was pretty excited, but it didn't help with getting her to take her medicine.

Noah finally woke up around 6 ish and we headed into the Living Room. There were toys galore. I didn't get a picture of all the presents, but here is a picture of some of the presents.


Toys galore. The nice part about this Christmas is that we opened a gift and they wanted it opened so they could see it. It made it nice because they didn't just rip through all the presents. They got to open one and enjoy it, even if it was only for a minute or two. Halfway through, we did stop so that we could get a bite to eat and Ava could spend 40 minutes trying to get 1 tsp of medicine down. Ha!ha!

Yup! Pretty much sums up how we all felt about Ava taking medicine!

One of my favorite things was Ava's gift to her cousin Sophie. She got Best Cousin necklaces and gave her one half and kept the other. We were sad that we couldn't be there to give it to her, but she was so excited to get it.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Day.




Noah eating some of Grammy's cinnamon rolls.

Baby Sam! He was so cute. In great spirits for the day.


This was the next day, but the best gift ever! The kids got a convertible car. I always wanted one as a kid. Asked every year and every year, I never got one. My mom says Santa was poor then!!! They do really like it and have lots of fun in it.

Watch out world, she is a distracted driver!!

The next best gift was the Santa's express train. They love it and watch it for hours.

The best part about Christmas is that the kids have lots of new toys to play with that they don't even ask to watch TV.

Can't wait until next year!!!

Case of the Sickies

Well, we have been sick. And by sick, I mean really sick.

It started with Ava. It always starts with Ava. She gets it from school. It started 2 Sunday's before Christmas. I think it is allergies that starts it all. She was home from school for 2 days. I was happy that at least she was sick before Christmas. Noah got it 4 days later. For about a little over a week with the 2 sick kids, there was no sleep here. The kids would be awake for about 3 hours each night. Noah would wake every hour on the hour for about 5-6 hours. We made it through the week, sleep deprived and all, but were on the mend. At least I thought we were.

The Monday before Christmas, Ava seemed to be getting worse and Noah was not getting any better. So off to Urgent Care they went. They were diagnosed with upper respiratory infections and given meds. The doctor said Ava had a touch of a fever, which was odd. That night, things went downhill. Ava came into our room around 9ish and she had a 103 temp. We tried giving her medicine, but giving that girl medicine is like pulling teeth from a baby. All she has to take is 1 tsp and it takes about 30-45 mins of crying, gagging and all around tomfoolery. Her temp would go down to about 101.5, but she still couldn't kick it. The next day, Mike took her to the ER. They found that she had a bladder infection that was causing the high temps. They gave her new meds and sent her home. Again, she still couldn't kick that 103 temp. She was up still sick Christmas morning/day. On Friday, we finally took her to the pediatrician because she started to develop a rash. uggg. great... The pediatrician called the hospital for the urine analysis only to find out that the type of bacteria that she had was resistant to what they gave her and now had to switch her yet again!!! I think we are finally on the mend. We are keeping an eye out for rashes and itchies, which she still as a little bit of.

Mike woke up and finally decided to go to Urgent care on Saturday because he thought he had a sinus infection and indeed he did.

So far, I have sorta escaped unscathed. I know my body is fighting to keep me healthy. Yesterday I actually had a temp of 99, but don't feel sick except really tired. My sleep has been absolute crap. I took some NyQuil last night in hopes of a better night sleep, but it was only ok. I am hoping to rest up today and just relax and keep taking my vitamins and drink a ton of water so I don't get it!! Keeping my fingers crossed!!

Holiday Traditions

December is the time of holiday traditions.  Now that the kids are a little bit older, I am hoping to add in some new traditions. This year sorta got past me. It seemed like such a short holiday season. Anyway, I kicked it off with Black Friday shopping. I go every year. I like to shop from 4-8am. There are not a lot of people out and about so it is nice and quiet, except Toys R Us. This year they had a 5am door buster sale, so it was busier than I expected, but not too bad. While I was out shopping, I bought Gingerbread Houses to build. As soon as I brought it inside, Ava asked every hour when we were going to make them. So we ended up doing it that weekend.


Then as soon as it was built, they asked hourly when they could eat it! LOL! After a day, I put the timer on and said "Go" and they went at it.

We did that for a few days and then we threw it out.

We bought our Christmas Tree the weekend of Thanksgiving also and they were both so excited to decorate. Ava did awesome decorating the tree.


It wouldn't be Christmas without the Santa's Beard Tradition. It is our version of the advent calendar.

The saying goes: "Santa's beard is very bare, on his chin there is no hair, so each day add a puff of white, when they are all on, he'll come that night". I found it on Pinterest and printed and laminated it to use each year.

It wouldn't be Christmas without Freddy, our elf on the shelf. He always arrives the evening before Dec 1st. He arrives at the door and the kids open the box and we read the story. They love to find him in the morning. Usually Ava would tell Freddy where to hide, so it made it easy. Ha!Ha!
One day, Freddy ended up in our wine fridge.


We also spent a day making some sugar cookies to decorate for Santa. Since we didn't have any of the usually decorations, we used the Easter colors. Ha. They mostly wanted to eat the batter and lick the frosting.


We also drove around and looked at Christmas lights, but not as much as I would have like too. But at least we did it!

Hoping to add in some new traditions next year.