"I Wanna Lay By Baby Kel"

Avril always demands to lay by her baby sister. I will often set McKel down on her back and let her do her kicking exercises. Next thing you know, there is a cute 2 year old girl next to her...

Avril Slideshow

Here are the slideshows I was trying to transfer to DVD for Avril's birthday party. They are kinda long, but I'm putting them on our blog anyway. I know Avril really enjoys looking at pictures of herself :) She's so vain. We love her all the same.


Happy two years Avril! We love you sweetheart girl!!

Avril's Birthday Party

Avril was soooooo excited for her birthday party. She kept talking about seeing Uncle Clubbs and Jordan and LoLo and Porter. She also was super excited about her "special" cake, the cookie monster cake.
We decided to have the birthday party at Nana and Papa's house since its much bigger.  Nana was an enormous help.  She made all the food and did the decorations.
Mommy stayed up all night the night before making a slideshow for Avril, and some video clips showing her first two years of life.  Unfortunately, for the life of me, I could NOT get the videos to burn on to a DVD.  I spent countless frustrating hours trying to get the videos to burn so that I could play them at Avril's party.  So... mommy was a little tired and upset but nana came to the rescue and made the cookie monster cake look amazing.  Everything turned out wonderfully, even without my DVD working.  Avril will always have happy memories of her special day.  Here are some pics from the celebration:

 Avril was in heaven, with all her favorite people surrounding her, all the attention on her, and lots of new presents to play with!

 Avril will not stop talking about how cookie monster's head fell off :)  After the party it rolled off backwards.  Maybe it was her kiss that made him head over heals.

A close up of the cookie monster cake

And this little cutie had plenty of people volunteering to hold her during the party

Avril opening some of her presents :)

Avril Turns 2!!

My baby is not a baby anymore.  I cannot believe its been 2 years already.  Time is seriously in light years now.  Avril has developed in to such a bright, spirited, energetic, independent, adorable little sweetheart of a human being.  I still can't believe I made her (well, Jesse helped I guess) :)

Jesse was so sweet to think of Avril's birthday months in advance.  He noticed that the local Toys R Us was going out of business so he got a steal of a deal on a couple big items for Avril.  They'd been in the trunk of our car for months.  Avril was sooooo excited for her birthday.  She was talking about her birthday party and presents and special cake for days.

On Avril's actual birthday (24th) we celebrated with just our family and opened the presents from dada.  Here are just some sweet pictures of Avril in her dress that Grammy Carme sent for her:

And here she is with her new birthday presents:

Daddy's little girl

Avril with her new drum set.  It took a team effort from both parents to put this thing together.  We're so proud of ourselves.  Now only if they made a silent drum set...

... and her bouncy bounce.  Jesse blew up this entire thing all by himself.  I doubted that he could do it so he had to prove me wrong.

McKel was not amused.  Time for beddy bye.

A couple video clips:

Sisters...

So cute, whether they're...

...Comparing elbows

Laughing...

Snuggling...

Sticking things out of their mouths...

Or holding hands...

They love each other so much already!  I just had to take some fun pics while they were all dressed up.  Look at these adorable shoes that our friend Leisa Firth hand made... McKel is wearing them and I think they're just so stinkin' cute!

And here is a little video clip I took after our photo shoot:  I love how McKel keeps tipping over in to Avril... and Avril shows off her counting at the end, as well as the many faces she can make. 

Turn My Heart to Mush

...that's what my family does to me.

I mean, come on... she's just so stinkin cute!

And this little Daddy's Girl loves to shower us with kisses.

I just can't express how much I love these guys.  Throughout each and every day there are countless moments that I think, "oh, that was the sweetest thing ever... save this memory and treasure it."  However, my memory is not exactly photographic... which is why this blog is great.  I can look at cute pics like these and let these moments come back to me and turn my heart to mush all over again.

Its All My Fault...

Avril had her first dentist appointment today.  No cavities.  Everything looks splendiferous... EXCEPT... the dentist says she has a MAJOR overbite and the gap between her teeth has some kind of skin tag between the teeth which means it will be permanent unless they surgically remove the skin tag and proceed with a 2-phase braces/headgear treatment, beginning around age 8.  She will probably need about 4 years of braces altogether, a surgery, and a headgear!  Yikes.
The Dentist asked if Avril sucked her thumb a lot or a binky as a baby.  Nope.  Oh... it must just be bad genes then.  Yup, that's it.
It's all mommy's fault.  I had years and years of braces, a headgear, and a couple of oral surgeries.  The works.  Sorry kids... there's a pretty good chance that braces are in your future.  But if your eyesight is bad... that's all daddy's fault.  Mommy has perfect vision :)

All in all, Avril loved the dentist.  She hated the teeth-cleaning but it was worth it since she got to color with giant crayons and the nice lady there gave her a new toothbrush with monkeys on it, as well as a purple helium-filled balloon!

Bad Hair Day

This morning I went to get Avril from her crib and had to grab my phone to take a pic.  You can see why:

Avril has given new meaning to the term 'Bad hair day'

...and yet she's still cute as a button and happy as a clam!  She's oblivious :)

Speaking of our cute girl... I have to write some of the funny things she's been saying because I don't want to forget.
First of all, Avril loves to sing.  She knows all the words to several songs, but lately her favorites are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Ring Around the Rosies, and Rock-A-Bye Baby.  Here are her lyrics for the latter two:
Ring a round the rosies, pocket full of posies, pockets, pockets, we all fall down!
Who wants to sing about ashes, anyway?

Rock-a-bye baby, in the Tree-Tock, when the wind blows the cradle will rock... etc.
Come to think of it, Avril's version of Rock-A-Bye Baby actually rhymes better than the original.  What a genius child we have!

So Jesse and I were laughing at something cute Avril did (I don't recall what exactly, there are just too many to keep track of)... and Avril gets this big grin on her face and says, "Avril made a funny!!"  This of course, made Jesse and I laugh even harder.  Then she gave us another huge smile, and says matter of factly, "Mama's so proud!"

Avril also attempts to conjugate verbs already.  The result is not always gramatically corrrect, but certainly is hysterically funny.  For example, Avril once again made us laugh, and shouted out, "I made a laughed!"

Another one of my favorite Avril quotes:  "Hey, what's going off?"  Haha, Avril substitutes the word "off" for the word "on."  Love it!  Doesn't get any cuter :)

Mykell's Birthday Party

Did I misspell my daughters name, you are wondering?  Did she have a birthday already?  Man, they really do grow fast!  No, no, no... this is a different Mykell, not to be confused with our baby McKel.  This Mykell did however, inspire our baby girl's name.

My friend Nichole threw a princess-themed birthday party for her daughter Mykell and we were invited.  Our whole family walked the 3 blocks to their house, since the weather was actually not horrid.  My poor Jesse must've felt terribly out of place at the Princess party.  What a good sport.  The girls all got tutus and necklaces, pink-painted fingernails, and hair makeovers (not Av, I don't think she could sit still long enough for these fancy hair-dos).
Here are some party pics:

Nothing sweeter...

Avril checking out the party scene

Yup, I think I could get in to this princess thing!

What do you mean, the party's not for me?

Mykell, the birthday girl is on the right, and is 5 years old!  She absolutely LOVED opening her presents.

V Day

Valentine's Day is way more fun when you have kids.  Then you have an excuse to hand make fun Valentine's Day cards, just like back in the days of elementary school.  I got all excited to have Avril and McKel help out.  What?  They're too young you say?  Nonsense.  Well, McKel may be a little young to handle the scissors but that doesn't mean she couldn't help out.  I was inspired by looking at my friend Lindsay's blog (Lindsay, you didn't even know I stole your idea... sorry!) and I decided to make heart shapes out of little footsie-prints.  So fun!  Avril loved having her feet painted pink.  McKel thought it was pretty cool too... at least I think.  Here was the result:

On the back I let Avril do some artwork scribbles and we wrote a nice V Day message of love.  We made some for the grandparents that we delivered as well.

Little did I know that my creative hubby pulled out the lovey dovey paper and glue as well.  Here is the Valentine I found when I walked downstairs:

 I just love my smoochy poo Valentine :)

Oh, and its hard to tell from this pic but I left my lovey a special note on the mirror with soap:

Notice how I am carrying both of my mini Valentine girls.  I am super Mommy!

So my other idea for Val Day was to make a yummy scrumptious fruit pizza from a recipe I found online.  Nothing says I love you like a fruit pizza, right?  Well, here was what happened with my first attempt:

Somehow I don't think this is what was supposed to happen.  Nevertheless, this still tasted scrum-diddly-umptious and got gobbled up very quickly.

And here is my 2nd attempt, the finished product:

Now that's a Valentine you can really sink your teeth in to.  I'm pretty sure the hubby liked it since the entire thing disappeared in a matter of minutes.

My Valentine surprised me with taking the night off of work and treating me to dinner at Cafe Sabor, a fave of mine.  Papa Bryan babysat little Av, and little Mick joined us to dine sleep while we dined.  It was a fabulous love-filled day!

Bragging Rights

Today is McKel's 2 month birthday!  She also had her 2 month check up at the doctor... which meant shots :(  So not fun for mommy or baby.  The Doc showed us her stats and said to keep them for bragging rights.  He said McKel is measuring about a month ahead.  I'm not sure if being big is something to brag about but if so, McKel totally takes the cake.  We were sure right about her being a BIG, beautiful baby.  Here are her 2 month stats:

Length:  61.59 cm  (97%)
Weight:  5.58 kgs  (86%)
Head Circumference:  39.75 cm  (76%)

In case you don't believe me:

And here is what McKel looks like at 2 months:

 She just keeps getting cuter!

Zzzz's

Last night McKel slept straight from 9:30 pm until 5:00 am. That's 7 1/2 hours! If only I could've enjoyed it properly. Instead I kept getting up to check on her and make sure she was still breathing. I am used to her waking up every 3 hours to nurse. I wonder how long she'll sleep tonight.

Both kids are in bed and I was so excited to do a quickie post and get to bed. However, I got sucked in to blogger world and started looking at fun blogs. Now my mind is racing with thoughts of all these new fun projects I want to do, and cool new things I want to learn how to do. Then I just get discouraged since I can't even finish my current projects with all my mommy duties. Uggh. How do all these other mommies do it? Slowly but surely, I'll figure it out. I'm still getting the hang of this being a mommy of two... two of the sweetest, most adorable precious angels in the whole world. I can't say it enough... I just LOVE my girls :) 

Little Courtney Crockett (just over a week old) and McKel.. 2nd cousins.  She makes McKel look like a giant!  Isn't it cute how they're latching arms?

McKel was so happy to have found a friend somewhat close to her size.

Today I walked in to my room and found this little miss mischief in mommy's make up drawer.  I'm not sure Avril has quite figured out why it's called "lip" stick.  Or else she thinks her lips extend way up onto her cheek.

Avril's so proud of herself for figuring out how to apply make up all by herself.

Today was the Super Bowl.  Packers vs. the Steelers.  We got a special treat!  Shelby came for a visit (now lives in Montana before leaving for the Army) with his friend Skyler.  I really didn't care who won but I decided to root for the Packers since its not nice to steal.  So yay, my team won!

Here is McKel watching the football game intently.

Go my favorite sports team!  Make a goal touchdown!