At The Ranch

Here are just a few pictures of us at the ranch. This is where Chris and I will be moving to as soon as our house sells. Ava loved the trampoline!
Ava with Grandma, Uncle Joey, and cousin (2nd cousin) Paul.
Ava riding in the gator with Grandpa.
Ava, Grandpa, and cousin Bennet.
Ava and mom on four wheeler. (Aren't I a natural!)

Chris and I took a four wheeler ride so Chris could show me around the ranch.

It's A Miracle!

Ava has started sleeping through the night! I can hardly believe it myself. It wasn't even a gradual thing. She was still waking up once or twice a night (sometimes more) and then all of the sudden one day, she didn't. It's been three nights in a row now. She goes down at 8 and wakes up at 6 or 6:30. (A little early for my taste, but I'll take what I can get.) And because Ava is sleeping through the night I'd like to say a special thanks to my friend Jenna who helped me get Ava there. She is really into this book called babywise and some of you may have heard of it or have already read it, but it really worked for her. (she has two kids and one was sleeping through the night at 12 weeks and one at 8 weeks). So for the past 3 or 4 weeks she has been encouraging me and helping me to put Ava on a schedule and follow the advice of this book. She said "I'll bet we get her sleeping through the night in a month". And we did! So thanks Jenna! And for anyone who is having trouble getting their baby to sleep, I recommend this book!

Thanks, but....

Thanks for all of the wonderful compliments on my decorating skills. I can't take all of the credit though. I briefly mentioned in my last blog entry that my realtor had someone come in and "stage" my house. So although I'd like to take all of the credit, I have to give credit where credit is due. The decorations are mostly mine, but not all. And, the arrangement of a lot of things is also the realtor. It does look amazing, and I absolutely love it. So thanks Medra, and thanks Rachel.

Before & After

When Chris and I bought our first home it definately wasn't the house of my dreams. In fact, I cried. You see, I was in Oregon visiting my family and Chris was here in Denver. We had been looking at houses but hadn't found anything yet that we really liked. So Chris was at his sisters house visiting her (here in Denver...Aurora actually), and this houe was for sale just a couple of houses away from her. Chris looked at it and called to tell me about it. "It's so big", "the master bedroom is huge", blah blah blah. Long story short, Chris really wanted to make an offer so we did.....without me having ever seen the house. Of course, you can always get out of it later so I knew it wasn't the end of the world, but still a very scary and risky move. So we made an offer, they accepted, and I came home. And I cried!
The pictures below don't even do the house justice. It was so awful. The carpets were disgusting! Animals had definately done their business on the carpets, spills everywhere...it was just horrible. The paint/wall paper was also awful. It's an old house so things were falling apart, closet doors missing, etc. Needless to say, I was not happy. At all.
We had an inspection done on the house and after that I said "sorry, no can do." I definately didn't want this house. The seller was already going to give us several thousand dollars for fix ups, but after I said no, they came back with a much larger amount to give us for fixing it up, and after careful consideration I felt like with a little paint, new carpet, and some all around TLC, we could make it work. So we accepted.
Now we are moving. The house isn't perfect by any means. There is still a lot of work that could be done, but it's improved so much. I am very sad to be leaving my home and ironically, I cried when we decided to move. But I'm very proud of it, so here are the before and after pictures. (One note, some of the stuff in the pictures isn't mine. our realtor had a decorator come in and "stage" my house and she brought some stuff of her own. A good portion of it, and all the big furniture is mine.)

notice the nasty carpet and lovely paint. oh, and don't forget the shutters in the archways.

Aahhh....much better.

Again, carpet!!

I'm pretty sure that microwave was one of the first ones ever made!!

And my favorite room, before and after. The wallpaper on bottom was actually fuzzy and the top was shimmery. Yikes!

Now, it's my favorite room!

this room was the worst "animal business" room. It smelled horrible.

Now it's a cute guest room.

I don't even know what to call that color. The mirrored shower door was also not my favorite.

I went a little crazy with the green color, but no regrets. I've enjoyed it.

I LOVE my master bedroom. It is big like Chris said. So they got something right I guess.

5 Years!!

Happy Anniversary sweetheart! I hope we have an eternity of "who can make the craziest face" contests!! I love you!

P.S. I totally won this one!

Strawberry & Spinach Salad with Honey Lemon Dressing

Strawberry & Spinach Salad w/ Honey Lemon Dressing

5 oz bag spinach

1 lb strawberries

1/4 C. Sugar

slivered almonds

1/4 + 1/8 C. Sugar

1/4 C. Lemon Juice

1/4 C. Honey

1/4 tsp. paprika

1/4 tsp. mustard

1/2 tsp. finely shredded onion

Slice strawberries and mix with 1/4 C. Sugar. Toss with Spinach and add 1-2 handfuls of almonds.

For Dressing: Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

The strawberries give the salad a little bit of a glaze and make it unnecessary to have dressing, but the dressing is delicious and I recommend trying it. It's so sweet you won't even know you are eating a spinach salad.

Daily Walks

Ava has a very short attention span and so we are constantly changing what we are doing during the day to keep her entertained. I usually go on at least 2 walks a day with her as part of her entertaining. It's one of her favorite activites, and yet we still can only make it last about 20-30 minutes before she gets bored. I always put Ava's sun hat on to help keep the sun out of her eyes, but if I go in the morning or evening the sun is so low that it still get in her eyes so I decided to add some sunglasses. Combine that with the hat and her permanately-attached-to-the-mouth pacifier and this is what you get..... I thought it was just so cute I couldn't resist taking a picture.
She rarely falls asleep on our walks, but this time she did and she just looked so darn cute! I wish I had a picture of myself from our walks too. It would probably make a good picture to see me pushing a stroller and reading. A lady stopped me the other day to admire my fine multi-tasking. As she so kindly pointed out I'm 1.) walking baby, 2.) reading, and 3.) getting excercise. Boy, I'm good!

Florida Pic's (yeah, I'm that far behind)

I know it's a little late in coming but here are a few, okay a lot, of pictues from my trip to Florida. We had a great time and I'm so glad I got to see my Grandma one more time. She died shortly after we left. I think she just wanted to hold on long enough to see all of her kids and grandkids one last time. She even got to see a couple of great grandkids. Ava chillin' at the beach. She was being crazy when we were in Florida and wouldn't let anyone else really take care of her so I had to take her with me everywhere. She hated the water, but did okay just hanging out on the beach.
A four generation picture. Don't my mom and grandma look so much a like? Of course, you could probably say there is resemblence between the three of us.
Uncle Keith holding both babies while Sally and I loaded up the carseats and strollers.
Ava and I with my sister Sally, younger brother David, and older brother Keith

How cute is she?!?!
Sally and I with our amazing condo in the background. It was literally right on the beach!
Chris wasn't able to come. I think this picture speaks for itself! Ava and cousin Macy holding hands.
The water was actually not too cold once I got my body all the way in. It just took some getting used to.
Ava and I saying goodbye to grandma.

This is my grandma and her dad. It was such a tender moment seeing them hug, knowing they were saying goodbye.