4th of July!

Ava got here on July 2nd to spend the week with us. The first few days was cloudy and rainy so the girls played inside a lot. On Friday I decided to take them to do one of their favorite things...get their nails painted. Kaiya and Ava both got blue and red nails (for the 4th of July)with white flowers. Ella felt left out and wanted her nails painted. After nails we went to the store and bought a movie to watch. When we got home the girls made a fort in Ella's room. Her room was already taken apart because we are in the process of switching the rooms around so it was quite a mess!
We watched a movie and then Ava had to go home for the night. She returned early Saturday morning and stayed until Monday night.

We didn't really have anything planned on Saturday so we hopped in the car and drove. We ended up at Carpinito Brothers to buy a beautiful hanging plant and then decided to go to Home Depot to buy some flowers for the girls to help us plant outside. We recently had a landscaper come take out the weeds and trim the bushes/trees so our yard needed some more TLC with some color. The girls had fun choosing where to put the flowers and helping dig in the dirt.

Ella loves her chocolate milk....

On Sunday we went to church and then got ready for our 4th of July celebration at my parents house. This year they had a block party in their cul de sac with some neighbors. Everyone pitched in food and even though it started to rain for a bit we still had fun. One of the neighbors brought out a canopy so some of us were able to huddle under it. My aunt and Uncles, cousin and Gramee also joined us for BBQ. As usual Cirdan was behind the BBQ cooking. He loves to be in charge of the meat and he is good at it! We also celebrated Ava's birthday that night with a birthday cake. She loved the cake! Nate and Amy announced that they are pregnant and due I think Feb 1st. It was a day of celebrations!

I made a fruit cookie...

We had a bunch of fireworks we brought to the party that Cirdan bought last year and never used that. My brother also bought some and a neighbor had a few. The firework show the guys (Cirdan, Nate and Jason) put on was spectacular! The girls had fun watching...even Ella didn't mind the big booms.

It was a late night for the girls. Kaiya and Ava both stayed up until the fireworks were done around 11:00.

Ava's visit - July 5th-9th

Monday

Ava came to visit last week. As usual Kaiya was counting down the days. I was looking forward to spending the 4th of July with her. I had a good amount of artillery/displays. I love lighting off fireworks and Ava talked about it quite a bit before she got here. First couple of days the weather was rainy (surprise). We watched Toy Story 2 before it stopped raining that afternoon.

We took the girls to the park in our neighborhood. They all needed to get out and exercise a bit.

Kaiya and Ava get along great....about 90% percent of the time :) The other 10% is spent fighting over real important issues like who had the bag of chips first and who had the yellow marker first.

Ella can pull herself up on the swing. She is very determined and strong- must be the protein shakes.

Ava on the other hand would rather be helped.

After the park we went home, ate some dinner and Ava went home around 8:00.

On Tuesday Ava came back early in the morning. The sun finally decided to come out and it was hot outside. We headed to go to a park and play...we chose Game Farm in Auburn. It was nice and hardly anyone was there. We packed up a lunch, some balls and our kid badminton set and headed for some fun in the sun.

Ava mentioned the night before about taking some pictures while she was here to put into an album and take back to Milwaukee. We thought that was a wonderful idea! So at the park we took a bunch of pictures. These are just a few...

All 3 girls wanted me to spin them round and round. Lasted about 15 minutes. I had to take breaks every couple of turns...I was getting super dizzy.

When we got home Ella took a nice long nap while Ava and Kaiya went outside to play in the sprinkler. They had fun running back and forth through the water and spraying each other.

The sprinkler is fun when it's 95 degrees! Sprinkler under the trampoline is even better.

Craig and Nate helped me set up the new trampoline I bought. THANK GOODNESS! It's a beast to set up. Not like the one we had before that could break down in 20 minutes.

The girls played on the swings and brought us some water while we worked. The net on the trampoline wasn't set up by the time we took Ava home so the girls had to wait in anticipation another day to play on the trampoline.

Wednesday

One thing that Ava wanted to do while she was here was go to Chuck E Cheese. Ava loves Chuck E Cheese and always wants to go when I see her. Ella talks about going at least once a week now. She is hooked. Her and Ella dig it, this is both of their favs. We played and ate some pizza then went home to finish the trampoline and play outside.

Here we are getting our race on!

Score!

Yay! The trampoline is set up and ready to play on!!!

Can you tell they like pictures, and that their Mom takes about 500 pics daily? I give Heidi a hard time because she always makes us stop and take a picture....sometimes it seems like every 5 minutes. It gets a bit....well....annoying. Ha ha. When we look back at our pictures and look back on our blog I am very grateful that we have all these memories captured.

Thursday we hung out at the house most of the day. We did take a trip to Walmart so that Ava could pick out an album for her pictures but other than that we were home. Kaiya and Ava like to play school so between that and playing on the trampoline with the sprinkler they were pretty busy having fun. Ava spent the night so the girls played a lot and then went to bed early. For some reason there are no pictures from this day.

Friday was Ava's last day with us. We went and saw Toy Story 3 in the theaters. It was a cute movie and the girls enjoyed it. Ella fell asleep during the first 30 minutes. After the movie we came home and put the sprinkler under the trampoline. We also celebrated Ava's birthday while she was here. She turned 5 on June 18th. I told her that we would light off a bunch of fireworks on the 4th of July for her birthday. Genius idea, I know. She got a cake and some presents as well. These were the presents that we gave her on Friday.

We will miss Ava but she will be back for another week in August! Woo hoo!

Last Day of School

The school year finally came to an end. We decided to keep up with the tradition and go to Chuck E Cheese after school (it was a half day). This year we invited some of our friends. The kids had fun playing and it was a great way to kick off the summer.
Kaiya didn't want the school year to end...at all. She loved her teacher and said she would miss her very much. When I we got into the car after I picked her up she started to cry. I felt bad for her but knew the summer would end too soon and school would be starting before she knew it.
Kaiya and Kaylee...

This was Ella's favorite ride. She wanted to go on it over and over and over...

Casey didn't like the ride very much and wanted to get off...ha ha

Pizza!