May 2014

Well, May came and went!! It was such a big month for us, so let's get started...

Ava had her first field trip to the AZ Museum of Natural History. (5/9/2014). The museum is huge and there were a lot of other schools there so it was busy. Noah did not like that. They let us go in and we were on our own to do whatever it is that we wanted. We walked around, but like I said, Noah was scared with all the kids there. I had to carry him part of the way. The final straw was when we were in one room and a metal dinosaur started to roar and it freaked him out. We left shortly after that.


Her class.


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Mother's day!

The best part of Mother's day is the homemade gift that I get from Ava from school. This year they made necklaces with a washer. It was awesome!

We didn't do anything special. I just wanted to hang out and not have to cook or clean or wipe dirty butts and that is exactly what I got. Mike made steaks for dinner too!

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Ava graduated Preschool this year. (5/21/2014). I can't believe that my little girl is growing up. Her school had a ceremony and gave them diplomas. We went to Chick fila for dinner per her request. I think she is excited for next year, but not sure she really realizes what it means. We did go to her school this past Friday (5/30) for some testing, so she got to see her school.

Top right: Mrs. Wilcox (her main teacher)
Middle right: Mrs. Merritt (the asst. teacher)

I love doing these pictures. It is her on the first day of Preschool and the last day of Preschool. I can't believe how much she has grown and looks more like a kid and not a toddler:(




Getting her diploma from Mrs. Wilcox

Ava and daddy with her flowers. She LOVES getting and giving flowers!

Ava going down the slide at the play area at Chick fil-a. That is all she wanted to do was play in the playarea.

Ice Cream sundae of course. Although, she only ate about 5 bites and didn't really like it. Her and Noah preferred Mike's strawberry milkshake!
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Garden update:
Our garden is doing really well this year. We have had lot of tomatoes, squash, green beans, peppers, corn, onions and basil so far.



One day's worth of cherry tomatoes.

Noah eating corn without it even being cooked. It is so sweet and yummy!

They had to share because we only got one that day.

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Mike and I celebrated our 12 year anniversary. My mom babysat for us so that we could get out. We really didn't have a plan we just wanted to be without the kids.


We started out at Starbucks, of course.


Then we headed out to the outlet mall near our house. We had never been and wanted to check it out. IT was hot, but they had fans blowing mist to help out. After that we decided to go to the casino that was right there and do a bit of gambling. We had no idea what we wanted to do so we found a quarter machine and sat down. I put in $10 and after 4 mins, I won $60! No sense in losing it, so we cashed out and headed to Whole Foods for pre dinner drinks.

Mike got a beer and I got a taster (I was DD for the day)!
Then we went to DC Steakhouse for dinner and headed home. It was a great day and nice to get away for a couple of hours.
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Ava started swim lessons (5/27/14) at Aspire. I really like it. It is a 2 week program, that unfortunately due to the holiday she only had 3 classes the first week due to the holiday and one was cancelled because of cloudy water. I think we might do another 2 weeks after this. She gets one on one with the teacher. She told me before we left that she didn't want to put her head under water and I told her that she didn't have to if she didn't want to, but within the first 5 minutes the teacher had her putting her head under water. Ava is a good kid that way. She will do what she is told from someone other than Mike or I. Haha! She did great!


Swimming with the teacher on the far right!
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Mike always takes the week of Memorial Day off. We used to go on vacation before we had kids since our anniversary and my birthday always fall within that weekend. Now we have "staycations". This is the first time in over a year that Mike has taken vacation and Ava hasn't been sick. (I think I finally figured out why she has been sick so often: Allergies). Anyway. We had a great week with a good mix of home stuff, kid activities and just overall fun.
The day that Ava's swim lesson was cancelled, we went to the Aquarium. Every time that we go, I am reminded why we don't go that often. It is so small. All you see are fish, turtles, a shark or two and stingrays. We made it through in 20 mins and paid about $60 for all 4 of us. Rip off. But worth it for the kids. They enjoyed it.



This is the coolest part of the aquarium. It is glass all the way around. Noah was freaked out and wouldn't walk on it.

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Randoms:
My mom brought the kids a whole lotta stickers. What do you think they did with some of them:

Noah's bedroom door

Ava's bedroom door
I would walk by Noah's door and pull some off here and there and last night they let me take them all off!

I repainted our Living Room/Play room. I really want to take that room back. I have moved a good portion of stuff into the kids room and they have been playing in their rooms a lot more too. But of course, when I pulled all the stuff out to paint, Ava was all over me to help. So I let them help for a bit.



ONe day, i was busy doing some things around the house and the kids were way too quite for my own good. So I went to see what they were doing and they found a box of bandaids and put them ALL on their stuffed animal. LOL! At least they weren't fighting and being quiet!


Now just some cute pictures from a walk to Starbucks one day.






That was one busy month. I hope you enjoyed!!

April 2014

What have we been up, we'll not much this month. It was a nice break from the go go go of January and February!

This is our windy time of the year. Hello allergies!  So we decided to take advantage of it and went to a park close by our house and flew some kites! The kids had a great time. I think this is the first time that they can remember doing that.
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Noah: I don't know if I have mentioned this, but he is napping without a diaper but still wears one at night. I know that he is fully capable of sleeping without it at night but he is just lazy and so are we. I want my sleep. He rarely has an accident at nap time but the other day mike put him down for his nap and he saw a pull-up on the floor and put it on himself and it was soaked when he woke up. Lazy, I tell ya. So I know it would probably take a week or so for him to remember that he doesn't have one on at night and we would be good to go. It is just take some time to convince him that he can go potty by himself at night. And then you just open a can of worms by allowing him out of his room at night. I guess we have to pick our battles.
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Both the kids have bug nightmares regularly. We finally got them dream catchers that we have hung above their beds. I would say that they do the job 90% of the time. At least some times we can convince them that the dream catchers will do their job and to go back sleep. One day I asked Noah what the bugs are doing in his dreams and he told me they were dancing. Lol!  I told home that that wasn't a bad dream. Hopefully they will grow out of it. Noah also sleeps with a nightlight on and his pillow pet that turns off after 20 mins.
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Ava is almost finished with school. It makes me sort of sad that she js going to kindergarten next year. It is crazy the amount of schools you can register for here and be on waiting list just for kindergarten. We have one school that we want her to go to but it is a lottery and she hasn't gotten in yet. If she doesn't, she will go to the local Elementary school. Noah is registered to go to Ava's school next year. I have introduced him to the teachers and they say hi to him all the time but he just looks down. Ohh that is going to be hard.  But then again, I thought it would be hard with Ava and she did just fine. We shall see.
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Ava has been slowly dropping her nap. She doesn't take one daily. She will always read in her room when it's nap time or play. Some days, she is tired enough that she will then fall asleep, but there are lots of days where she doesn't. The best part about it is that she waits until she hears Noah wake up, so I get nap time to myself! This is good. I was going to drop it after the fourth of July if she didn't naturally because she won't get to nap at school. I think I will just let her nap or not nap, but the week or so before school, try to keep her up with some quiet time so that she isn't so tired the first 2 weeks of school as she adjusts.
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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!!!