Splashing around in the pool

It was a nice day out today, so John put out the pool for the girls and they had a great time!


This swimming suit is barely fitting Reagan because it's a size 2T from last year :) I went shopping for swimming suits once, but couldn't find anything I liked and I haven't had time to go shopping again since.

Love how you can see the individual water droplets in this picture ... I'm still trying to figure out my new camera, so some pictures come out great and others don't look good at all! I just need more practice, so it's a good thing I have such great subjects of which I can take pictures!

I had the camera on zoom, so I managed to cut off most of Avery's head, but I thought it was a cool picture anyway ...

John's cousin Nereyda came over again, as well as Jesus with his boys. I made dinner, which the adults enjoyed while the kids played with the Wii. It was a great afternoon!

Josh and Ethan had bright blue tongues after eating Popsicles

Avery gave Jesus a sweet kiss goodbye

... then she waved and said goodbye

I love the expression on Reagan's face in this one

Reagan gave Nereyda a big hug

Catching up ... Labor Day

I'm SOOOOOO behind in my blog posts and it's making me CRAZY! I have many wonderful pictures and stories to share, yet no time to sit down and do it. You might be thinking, what's changed? The only things I can think of are these:

1. Avery is very mobile and into everything, therefore she now requires a lot of time and attention (I used to be able to set her down with some toys and I could blog - not anymore!) ... if I set her down across the room and I sit down at the computer, she's immediately standing at my chair, clawing at me to pick her up and play with her.
2. I'm proud to say that for about the last 3-4 weeks, we've been sitting down as a family for home-cooked, healthy dinners every single night! As most of you know, Reagan is a horrible eater. After talking to my friend Nicole (who is a trained behaviorist) about Reagan's eating issues, she told me the first and most important step is to make sure we have designated meal times each day. Ever since Avery came along and took the high chair, we've been letting Reagan eat her meals in front of the TV. Bad habits to get into! So, John and I are now making sure we eat dinner together as a family every single night in the dining room. I'm not seeing any immediate changes in Reagan's willingness to eat new foods, but it's been a good thing for all of us as a family. The one who has benefited the most is AVERY! I've been giving her EVERYTHING we've been eating (cut up into small pieces) and she's turned into the best little eater! Obviously, I'm determined to have one child who eats the same things John and I eat for dinner, so I'm doing things a little differently this time around ... I never cut up pieces of steak and pork chops for Reagan when she was 10 months old! But Avery seems to prefer feeding herself and it's also a lot easier for me, rather than spoon-feeding her pureed foods. The downfall to this new routine of ours is that I've had to spend lots of time cooking ... I actually don't mind cooking, but I don't feel like I'm very good at it. I feel like it takes so much time to plan meals, go shopping for all the right ingredients, and then the actual cooking takes me a lot of time too (especially since I end up preparing something separate for Reagan). It also becomes quite difficult when Avery is pulling at my legs and Reagan is at the peak of her "witching hour" since she's no longer taking naps. It's been nice to sit down together as a family and I'm happy about this new routine, but I feel like it consumes my entire evening. By the time we're done with dinner and the kitchen has been cleaned, it's time for baths and bedtime. I'm usually so tired by then that I just go to bed too. Oops, that's #3
3. I've been going to bed earlier! I used to put the girls to bed and then I'd have some time to blog at night ... but since I have a hard time making myself go to bed, I often stayed up into the wee hours of the morning. I feel miserable when I don't get enough sleep, so I've been trying to go to bed at the same time Reagan does (between 8-9). This doesn't always happen, but when it does, I always feel better the next day.

So there you have it... the reasons my blog has been seriously LACKING the last few weeks! Here are some pictures from our fun Labor Day ...

We went to the pool on Labor Day, since it was the last day it was open ... Reagan was doing her favorite thing there, "making a garden." I don't know where she came up with this idea, but she loves to pour water into the buckets, over and over. Then she'll ask, "Mommy, isn't my garden beautiful?"
Avery loves the water!

John got Reagan a popsicle and she was nice enough to share it with her sister. Avery goes nuts for popsicles!

That afternoon, Maribel invited us over for a barbecue. We came home briefly after the pool, changed into dry clothes, then went to Maribel's looking pretty disheveled!

The DeLeon Family: Marcelo, Joaquin, and Maribel

Maribel was excited to use her new umbrella

Reagan and her first lightning bug!!! I have to be honest, I think I was more excited about this than Reagan was. I've never caught a lightning bug (and I'd never seen one until I moved here 4 years ago). Reagan was holding it and it just sat there in her hands, lighting up. It was very cool!

Avery and Lauren ... can you see Avery's crazy hair? That's from all the sunscreen in her hair from the pool.

Monday and Tuesday in Salt Lake

Camille and Brett just purchased a fun new toy for the backyard: a trampoline! I'd never seen one like this before; it doesn't have springs and it has a net around the whole thing. It's so much safer than the trampolines I used to jump on as a kid! On Monday morning, we went to Camille's house and had a great time jumping on the tramp and playing in the water. It's been in the 90s here, so we had to continually spray the tramp with water to keep from burning our feet.


Makenna and Reagan taking a break in the shade

Amanda, Reagan and Alyssa

Camille had to take Makenna to swimming lessons, so we stayed behind and played a little longer. Reagan had so much fun jumping with Alyssa and Blake who were making up songs the entire time. Reagan's favorite song was "Jiggle Jungle." I spent a fair amount of time jumping and playing on the tramp as well ... funny how I don't remember it being such incredible exercise! When I was a kid, it was simply fun and I had no idea I was working so many muscles!

On Monday night, I got together with my girlfriends at Cafe Trio (the Cottonwood location). We do this every time I come to town, but since it had been a whole year, it was especially great to see everyone.

Here I am with Nikhol Hendler. Nikhol works at the other Trio location, so she made sure we were very well taken care of. The manager put 4 appetizers on the table, all complimentary. Needless to say, we all ate a ton of food!

John came with me for the first 1/2 hour so that I could show off my girls and then he could take them and I could spend the evening catching up with my friends. Starting with me, going clockwise around the table: Nicole, Nikhol, Autumn holding Avery, Missy holding Xander (Autumn's son), Nadia (Missy's daughter), and Reagan. Just after this picture was taken, Wendi joined us ... since she's one of my devoted blog readers, she wouldn't let me take her picture, for fear it would end up here. She's right, it would have! She had just come from work and claimed she looked bad, but I thought she looked just as beautiful as always. Even though you're not pictured here Wendi, it was wonderful catching up with you and I'm so glad you came, if only for a little while!

Trying to get a good family photo is virtually impossible...

Here I am with Nicole and Nikhol ... Including my friend Nicole in NJ, I have 3 very close friends with the same name :)

Here's Autumn and her son Xander, who is a miniature version of his father Chad. Xander was born on December 29th (I think that's the right date!), so he's about 8 weeks younger than Avery ... looking at him, you'd never know he's only 6 months old!

Annie, Autumn, Xander, Nicole, Amanda, and Nikhol

Nicole and Nikhol have more in common than just their name ... they both have great legs! At the end of the evening, (after a few glasses of wine), they were flaunting their fabulous legs for the camera! I told them this picture would be posted to my blog. For those of you in NJ, check out those beautiful mountains in the background ... can you see that they are still snow-capped? I sure do miss seeing these gorgeous mountains everyday.

After dinner, Autumn drove me to the softball diamond to meet up with my family ... John had joined my family for dinner, then they went to my dad's softball game. Brett (Camille's husband) has always played on my dad's Monday night team.
Camille, Avery, Autumn, Xander, Samantha and Michelle

Reagan and Makenna were having such a good time playing with a potato bug! They also had fun digging around in the dirt ... in fact, they were having so much fun that when we told Reagan it was time to leave, she threw a huge temper tantrum.

Today, (Tuesday, June 24th) was Blake's 5th birthday! We met Benee and her kids (Blake and Alyssa) at the pool for a little while.Here's Blake, Reagan and Alyssa swimming in the kiddy pool

Reagan was having fun in this tube, while Grandpa moved her around ... Avery doesn't look too happy here!

Nana gave Reagan some grapes and rather than pulling each grape off the stem and then putting it in her mouth with her fingers, she bit each grape right off the stem! I'm not sure where she learned to do this, but it was funny to watch her lift up the clump of grapes, tilt her head back, and then bite off a grape ... my mom and I were laughing.

After the pool and Reagan's nap, Reagan's hair was all over the place. My mom put it back into a clip and I thought she looked so grown up! I just love the expression on her face in the above picture.

John went to 7-11 and came back with this 40 ounce Peach/Mango Slurpee. Reagan was immediately hooked! Looks like Slurpees might be a popular treat this summer.

Here are my parents before they left the house to go miniature golfing with the Larsen family for Blake's birthday.

We met my parents at one of my FAVORITE restaurants in Utah: Cafe Rio! Everyone who has ever been to Utah knows exactly what I'm talking about. Cafe Rio makes the best barbequed pork and it's amazing in this salad. Whenever we go to Salt Lake, John and I have to have at least one meal at Cafe Rio. We always get the homemade chips and queso for everyone to share, then we share the pork salad. It starts out with a homemade tortilla, then black beans and rice, then the pork, lettuce, and tortilla strips. The creamy tomatillo dressing is to die for!

Saturday and Sunday in Salt Lake

On Saturday afternoon, my mom and my sisters and I went to get pedicures. It ended up being a re-run of what happened last year: we called a place and made an appointment for 4 of us to have pedicures at the same time. When we got there, they didn't have 4 available chairs, nor 4 available employees to take care of us. So, we left and found another place. Although it was fun to have a pedicure with my favorite ladies, I was pretty disappointed with the end result ... the lady who performed my pedicure was rushing to finish it and did a very sloppy job. I was done so fast that I ended up waiting a good 20 minutes for the rest of them to finish. Oh well.

On Saturday night, John and I went out to dinner to the Dodo Restaurant at The Gateway with my wonderful friend Natalie and her husband Gavin. Natalie and I met in middle school and immediately became great friends. She was in 9th grade when I was in 8th grade, so I felt pretty cool to have an older friend like her. After high school and after my first year of college, we decided to move out of our parents' homes and into our first apartment together. Natalie was a wonderful roommate! We lived together for almost 2 years in 2 different apartments, until she and Gavin (her high school sweetheart) got married. At dinner, they blew me away by saying they just celebrated their 10 year wedding anniversary! They now have 1 beautiful girl, Morgan (7), and 2 handsome boys, Walker (5) and Grayson (almost 3). It was so much fun to catch up with them over dinner and then on our walk around The Gateway.
After dinner, we stopped at Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream, then stood and talked for a while. I decided to drip chocolate ice cream down the front of my shirt ... don't I look nice?

On Sunday morning, we packed up the girls and headed to the Life Center pool. Before we left, we took this cute picture of Avery wearing my hat :)

Here's Reagan getting ready to jump into the pool.

This was Avery's very first time going swimming. Just as I figured, she absolutely loved the pool! Avery has always loved the bathtub, so I wasn't surprised when she laughed and laughed as she splashed around in the water.

Here's Avery taking a break from swimming ... I love the sunscreen-filled hair!

On Sunday evening, we had all of my family come over for Avery's blessing.

I also invited my best friend Missy and her husband John. Her daughter Nadia came too, who was looking so grown-up! Missy and I lived together for a year and a half before I moved to New Jersey.

Here's my cousin Marlo's daughter Savannah, her grandparents David and Collette (my mom's sister) and my aunt Daryl (my mom's other sister) holding Avery.

My beautiful niece Makenna (my sister Camille's daughter)

Amanda, Avery and John

Isn't this the most adorable picture? Here's Makenna and Avery, practically in matching dresses.

Samantha and Avery playing with toys from Nana's toybox

Left to Right, going clockwise around the table: my aunt Daryl, her son Brady and his wife Chrissie, my cousin Jamie, my cousin Chelsea (Daryl's daughter) and her husband Jason.

Amanda, Reagan giving her cheesy grin, and John

SISTERS :) Benee, Amanda and Camille

Reagan with her aunt Benee

Avery with her great grandfather, Neal Mann (my mother's father)

Avery with her great grandparents, Wayne and Betty Fawson (my father's parents)

Avery and her Nana (Michelle)

A 4 Generation picture: Michelle, Rod, Betty, Avery and Amanda

The Mendez Family with Grandma and Grandpa Fawson ... kind of a silly picture of us, but I thought it would be fun to post ...

At the end of the evening, Nana made ice cream cones for Reagan and Makenna ... as you can see, Reagan was pretty happy about it!