Friday, April 24, 2009

Amaya's Latest

Funny stories are in bold for those with limited time to read (ie those with kiddos). :-)
What has Amaya been up to lately? For starters she discovered a new zoo with mommy and mam-ma. Last Sunday "the girls" went to the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium while "the boys" (daddy and papa) went golfing. She had so much fun she's still talking about it! It has so much more to offer than the Phoenix Zoo!!! Sorry Phoenix Zoo. We still like you, too. The highlights that Amaya still talks about: the choo choo ride through "Africa"; the boats ("boats, weee, all wet"); "mama monkey, baby monkey, swing, monkey poop", yes...the monkey pooped right in front of us; feeding the giraffes; watching the zebras (she didn't want to leave the zebras, so mommy bought her a stuffed zebra in the gift shop). That gives the idea. Local Valley of the Sun dwellers, check it out! There's so much to do and see there! Worth the drive to the other side of the valley.

Let's see. What else. Amaya's hair is growing like a weed. Now that she leaves the hair contraptions in her hair, we are growing her bangs back out. The side swept look is cute, so we may stick with that. Or grow them all the way out. We shall see. Daddy just loves that it's long! He has banned me from taking Amaya for any more haircuts.

Amaya can now count to 10 all on her own. Although, she does like to leave 7 out half the time for some strange reason. Daddy doesn't like that since that was his baseball number. Maybe that's why she does it. Maybe she thinks 7 is daddy's, since everything else is daddy's. We'll be hanging in the family room in the evening and if I have the remote control, Amaya will come over and grab it from me and say "No! Daddy's remote!" And take it over to Scott. Too funny. Anyone suppose Scott taught her to do that while I was at work? Suspicious! Amaya is also learning her ABC's, colors, and shapes. Her favorite shape is circle for some reason. She points out circles everywhere we go now. It's quite funny. She knows part of the alphabet song and she knows a few colors. We're getting there.

We were going to officially start potty training the first week of April since the last of our "winter" visitors had returned home...but then the flood happened. Then we were going to start this week and Amaya got super sick. ;-(. I think God is telling me it's not time yet. Goodness gracious. We shall see. Meanwhile, she continues to take off her diaper and pants on her own and sit on the potty to pee 3-6 times a day. We always say good girl when she's done, so a few weeks back she started saying "good girl, i pee potty" when she's done. Well, now when I take her into public restrooms so I can use the facilities, she says nice and loudly "good girl, mama pee potty" when I'm done. I'm just waiting for someone to congratulate me when we walk out. :-).

O.K. That's enough for now. Better go get some stuff done before the little one wakes up. Have a great weekend everyone! It's going to be beautiful... mid-80's and sunny. The pool has warmed up after our triple digit day and the 2 upper 90's days, so we are going to try out our pool this weekend. Yeah! Amaya will be thrilled. Miami Vice anyone.

Here are two pictures of our sick little sweetheart. She was a trooper! She's finally back to her energetic self today, but still not eating that much. Don't blame her...she was pretty sick.
Daddy's always make it better!

Wiped out!



Thursday, April 16, 2009

Easter Fun

Amaya had a super fun Easter this year. From the moment she woke up that morning, there was a buzz in the air. She remembered we had told her that the Easter bunny would be coming to bring her a basket of surprises, and that she would get to see Papa Jerry and Mam-ma Cindy. So this is what she says as we walk into her room Sunday morning: "bunny, sprise, papa, mam-ma." And we heard it several more times. She was excited for the big day. So we started the day by going to church with papa and mam-ma. Then the 5 of us went to Mimi's for breakfast. After that we went home to find the Easter bunny had been there and left Amaya an Easter basket of goodies. So, she had some fun with that. Then it was naptime and "Masters" time. After Amaya's nap, we went to the Wests'. The boys enjoyed watching the Master's and the girls enjoyed gabbing and watching the children play. We all had a great time. Thanks to the West's for hosting a fun-filled Easter afternoon. Here is Amaya's Easter in pictures. Wish we could've gotten pics with grandma and grandpa, but busy Amaya is to energetic in the morning for pictures. We don't even try for still shots anymore. Candids are the only way these days. Smile, smile. After the crazy week we had with the flooding, it was so nice to enjoy a day just hanging with family and friends.

Amaya's Easter Basket, before she got her "paws" on it.
The fun begins.

Bunnies and bubbles and books, oh my.

And of course candy. Candy, candy, candy. Amaya definitely knows that word now.

Ooooo, look at all this fun stuff. What shall I play with first.

This bubble whistle looks like fun....

....let's start with that.

The bubble whistle sounded like mess-free bubble fun...but it wasn't. So we took it outside.

We discovered that Amaya enjoyed just blowing the whistle. She didn't care that it blew bubbles.

She marched around the pool blowing her whistle as if a conductor of a marching band.

Quite cute.

Taking a break from whistle-blowing for a bite of her candy bracelet. How convenient. Now that's a portable snack.

Snack time at the Wests'. You can barely see Jax because he kept pushing the table away. Too funny. (Amaya insisted on sitting in her booster chair. Also quite funny. Guess she missed it during her 2 week hiatus from "Erin-care.")

Park time.

Wow. I got all three of 'em in a picture at the park. Quite a feet with 3 busy toddlers.

Pretty in Pink Polka Dots

Time to head back for the Easter egg hunt.





Amaya and Jaxon giggling as they watch the doggies outside. Kate thinking what's the big deal, I see this all the time.
Happy Belated Easter, everyone.

Friday, April 10, 2009

We made it through the storm, er, uh, make that flood.

Since we now live approximately 1,860 miles from the Red River in Grand Forks, we figured it was pretty safe to say that we would be avoiding any flood damage from this year's Red River flooding, unlike in 1997 (oh, fellow UND classmates, remember those days?!?!). It seemed a pretty safe bet. Boy were we wrong! Our home still managed to flood. Yes. That's right. The water still found us. Long story short, our insurance company is now suing our pool guy and I've done nothing all week but deal with our partially flooded main floor (and take care of Amaya, of course). It's been a super fun week! If not for the fact that we had already been through a much worse flooding of our home in 1997, this may have sent my stress levels to their peak. But, remembering back to the time the Red River decided to pay us a visit in our home, all was kept in perspective. We tackled the drying out process, the restoration process, and dealing with the "business aspects" of it all, and now here we sit after a very busy and exhausting week, with the end in sight. Yeah! The "clean-up crew" is gong and we are about to finish the final phase of moving back into our family room. Then it's time for a cocktail! Aaaahhh. Make it a double.