Casting & Riding

They really mean it when they say teach a man to fish and he can feed himself.

Last weekend we took the girls to the marina so Olivia could try to ride her big bike without the training wheels. It took one try and she was cruising the parking lot. Smiling from ear to ear, that little girl was racing.

When I had first mentioned to Dave that it was time to remove the training wheels he was very hesitant. I kept saying she is now tall enough to almost touch the ground. I think she has a 16in bike or a 20in.. Whatever it is it is tall. Liv too felt she was ready. What was the worst that can happen I had told her.. You decided you want the wheels back on and we put them on. No biggie.

Ha. She didn't need them. Nor did she need to be over protected.

So after the riding we took the kids fishing. Ava sat next to me and Liv sat next to Dave and we fished off of opposite sides of the Pier. With Ava I casted out her pole and walked away. She told me she needed to reel it and and cast it out herself. Okay with me... it was her pole... I told her how to hold the button and when to throw it out. So she casted that pole right out there and wham. Her bobber hit the water right next to mine. After that she practiced the rest of the day. Ava can now fish for herself.

And then there's camp David. Olivia wasn't so lucky. She was micromanaged from every angle and angry she didn't get to cast her pole out herself. After listening to those two go at it I said to Dave that it was HER pole and maybe she should do what she wants with it. Go figure after a few short tries she was casting her fishing pole by herself and then taught some boys who came by too.

Skating

Look at these two... wish life was this easy for me.

Goofy Girls

Like always the girls have had several birthday parties to attend... to be quite honest I am literally sick of it and wish all the rest of the kids this school year skip their birthdays. Sounds harsh right? Every freakin' Saturday there is another party. Yuck. But here are the highlights from a few of them:

Olivia killing the pinata...

Ava became a cowgirl after riding the horse at Juli's and talking to the cowboy (horse owner).

Ava at a different party jumping with her friends.

Ava's collection of bugs from the pinata.

Using the Gifts

Seriously? Is there anything these two can't do?

Olivia's first attempt at the "poto" stick. I don't know why she calls it that but she can jump on it!

This is a scooter that Olivia was given by Santa but since it has two wheels instead of three Ava has taken it over and she's good at it. Guess what she'll be getting for her birthday?

Kids Mass

Upon arriving at church for Christmas Mass I was dreading that the Mass would be a long one and the kids would get antsy. So to my surprise a woman walked over to us and asked if the girls would like to be in the play. Of course my two little hams said yes and ran away with her. And there we sat. The entire Mass in silence. Even the baby went to sleep. I literally could the angels singing.

Apparently Liv chose to be an angel. Go figure. It has wings. She would never pass on the chance to wear wings.

Ava was a camel. Dave thought she was a cow. Apparently he doesn't know the story of the three kings and baby Jesus. Isn't that where Christmas derived from anyway?

Thanks-we'll give it back

How it should be:

This was how it started out- Olivia's last day at school and her birthday before the Holiday break. The kids ate a Thanksgiving Feast and had a birthday celebration for Olivia.

Olivia ran and played and had FUN.

And then she was stuffed like a turkey.

And here the kids sang happy birthday.

Of course Ava's last day was great too. She came out of class wearing her papoose complete with baby.

These two were ready to tackle Thanksgiving.

How it really was:

Thanksgiving sucked. That is all there was to it. I'd like to write a cheery post on how great it was and how it was so much better than last year with Grandma B being hospitalized and all. But no- this one sucked too and we have all come to an agreement that we are OVER that stupid day and we will be eating Chinese food.

So here's the lowdown. Ava was sick in the early part of the week. Grandma B arrived late Tuesday night. Wednesday Olivia and Gavin start the sniffles. Thursday I wake up with the sneezes, snots, and itchy face. See where I'm going with this? All day I feel like hell but I toughed it out making the stupid dinner. Rachael calls saying she can't come over 5 minutes before dinner because Nick had a fever and now says he's going to barf. I check Olivia- fever. Gavin- fever. Me- gonna get drunk like my life depends on it all the while just wishing I could A) stop sneezing and blowing my nose B) breath and C) do so while laying down.

So now the stupid bird is out of the stupid oven (not burned liked last either) and as Dave approaches the table he says his stomach aches- REALLY?? I mean that with as much sarcasm as there is in the world. So we sit down, eat enough food to fake it like we are all really happy and thankful while we are all really thinking, "I'd be thankful to get away from this freakin' table and go lay down." And then the kids get their medicine, I take my medicine, poor Gavin suffers from ongoing snot, and Dave says his head now hurts. Grandma B all the while still feeling good. It was her turn last year.

That black Thursday night we had some midnight online shopping to do so instead of going to sleep we stayed awake. We bought the gifts we wanted and went to bed. The baby was up all. night. long. Yea for me. Friday morning Dave goes to pick up a few doorbuster items and comes home again saying his stomach hurt as well as his head. How many times did I offer to take him to Kaiser during this day- almost every hour but he said he was fine. Again around 6PM I said, "Let me take you now so we don't have to do this in the middle of the night." Nope.

Fast forward to 9:30PM. Gavin finally asleep on top of me. The sugarplums are snug in their bed. Movie playing on Blueray and then I hear the famous words of last year, "I need to go to the ER RIGHT NOW!!!" Of course you do you fool. So since I'm draining and sneezing and Gavin's finally given up trying to fight his cold Grandma B goes with the fool who had to drive himself to the hospital. Upon arriving promptly he tells them he's going to barf and he is admitted at once. They call me and let me know he's getting a cat scan shortly and then an hour later I get the good news. "Amee?" Donna asked.
"Yes??"
"David's having surgery at 6AM. He has an acute appendicitis."

Of course he does. Because what would be this miserable Thanksgiving weekend without carving up one of our family members.

Yip. Apparently that's how we roll. Oh and Grandma B called from Colorado. Guess what? She's sick.

Harvest Festival

Today was the annual Harvest Festival so we went to soccer and then headed on over to the festival. There were pony rides which the girls couldn't get enough of... Dave entered a pumpkin pie eating contest and came in a close second. Nick and the girls made some arts and crafts and went through the haunted bus after bouncing around on the jumpy slide. But the best part came later in the evening. Trick or treating in the streets of BW.

The kids all wore their costumes and trick or treated most the stores in BW. Nick, Hayden, and Hunter were there too so it made the night a lot of fun. Most of all, the girls came home with a lot of loot- candy, toys, toothbrushes (my favorite), pencils, and all sorts of other goodies.

like these masks....:)

Gavin had to get in on the fun too.

Since he couldn't trick or treat he played with the pumpkins...

And when the girls were full of candy and tired as ever Gavin and I had a chance to play before going to bed.

Yip, that's my boy right there. I just want to squish him and smooch all over his little face.

He, other the other hand, wants to show off his ability to stand.

What a fun day for everyone. Gavin slept through most of it as he should being 12 weeks old in just a few hours but the girls -- they could have gone all night if we let them. I think besides Christmas this is their other favorite day!

Fieldtrips

Olivia had her first field trip with her Kindergarten class last week. She got to ride the school bus which she has been waiting to do since she saw Caillou do it on PBS. Dave chaperoned and was able to join her on the bus. They went to the pumpkin patch and picked out some pretty great looking pumpkins.
Ava had her field trip today and was also chaperoned by Dave. I couldn't go because I had to be able to pick up Olivia when she got out of school and I had Gavin's 3 month pictures scheduled in between. Ava also picked out some big juicy pumpkins.

Ava and her best friend at the pumkin patch.

Both field trips went smoothly. The girls had fun with all of their friends and their daddy. After it was all over they created these little beauties for our front porch.

Olivia wants it noted she carved her pumpkin all by herself. She did a wonderful job too.

Fishy

Guess what the girls have been up to?

Splitsville

Ava told me I'm a good mommy because I make the goodest banana splits. Olivia said, "why does it have a banana in it- I wanted an orange." Can't please 'em all!

The Girls Being Girls

 These two girls provided dinner tonight!! They fished until they caught enough to feed us all. Awesome.

 See this tiny lizard- He has been wrecking havoc on the girls all summer and finally they caught him. Now what do they do with him?

Bringing him into my bedroom seemed like a good idea...

And Olivia lost tooth number two on the bottom. The tooth fairy was good to her. She found a gold coin and a silver dollar under her pillow.

The girls went to Home Depot to pick up some toys to build and everyone went for a ride in the cart.

Movie Night

The girls went to all three movies under the stars this summer. They ate popcorn and played with their friends. Here's Liv with Kaylee Rose. Nick and Hayden and a few of Liv's preschool friends all attended. I stayed home this time too pregnant to go. Grammie and Papa took my place with Dave and the girls. They said it was a lot of fun.

A's Game

 Papa and Grammie went to their first bobble head game. Liv was super excited.

 Grammie said her bobble head was going right on her mantle.

After the game, the girls tried to drive off with the police motorcycles... Noooo- they just posed for their picture!

The Last 30 Days

What haven't we done in the last 30 days...
We've gone to the movie theater for the free movies and ate gobs of popcorn complete with sprinkles, we've been on numerous water park play dates, we've been fishing, and we've gone to the pool. If all those things weren't enough we also went to Grammie and Papa's for an 11 day vacation. We rode bikes, went bowling, and swam in their pool often.

Both girls can now swim the length of the pool without a life jacket.

And then we went camping in the RV and a tent for a few days...

We went on many many hikes around the lake.

Some of it was on some pretty tough terrain with a ravine on the side of us but we managed to stay alive.

Liv found a butterfly garden and spent an hour holding them and chasing them.

We fished both on and off the dock. You can't see it but Ava and I are on shore fishing while the pros are conquering the dock.

We camped in the RV the first night.

We swam in Lake Siskyou until we were tired and then Daddy chauffeured the girls around on their raft.

Some of got to drink wine while others of us weren't allowed and were very disgruntled. That would be me.

The girls really wanted to tent camp under the stars and given the good father Dave is- he obliged.

Then we fished on the boat. Everyone caught something except my dad.

At first Liv caught a dragonfly and then she shared it with Ava.

Dave caught the mammoth crawfish which was later boiled and eaten by the girls.

Liv's catch which was fried up and eaten by the fishing queen herself.

Ecstatic Ava caught herself some grub and cooked it and ate it too. Then we roasted our nightly s'mores and headed to...

watch the fireworks off the boat for the 4th of July. But like all good things we had to go home-

but the fun doesn't stop there. Once we got home we set up the projector in the backyard and watched a movie under the stars in the backyard complete with popcorn and cheesy sprinkles.

And one night for dinner we ate the beans in this picture for dinner. These beans were dried pintos that came home as part of a project in Olivia's class. What I didn't know was that she planted them in one of my house plants and Dave unknowingly was watering them. So one day when I noticed these plants growing with my palm tree Olivia told me she was performing an experiment. Dave came home that night and they replanted said experiment in the garden OUTSIDE and since then they have grown and flourished and have become part of our dinner. Way to go Olivia- you little green thumbs!!!

Here we are at the water park last week when Julie brought Yentl and the kids out. She also brought baby ducks with her so the kids and the ducks all played in the water.

Poor little ducks. They did all survive.

The girls with Hannah.

Over the weekend, the girls and I met Nick and Rachael at the park for some water play. They seemed to play more in the dirt. Go figure.

And this is a big karate week. Olivia will be testing for her Orange belt on Wednesday. She has practiced really hard and we are all really excited for her.