April 19, 2009
Hello and Greetings to all of our dear friends. We hope that through this economic challenge all of you are being well blessed and discovering greater opportunities. It is time for my 6 month update that I do for our family, well mostly for me and my records, so I don’t forget all that is going on in our lives. So, here is what we have been up to the past 6 months….
Well, we tried out up North, and it just did not take! We have become St. Georgians once again, we just love it here! We are back in our home, with our wonderful neighbors, ward, pool and all the things and people we love. We enjoyed being in Bountiful with family and friends and preventing flooding at my parents, mail theft and mysterious falling mirrors, but alas, we felt an incredible pull back to our home. Charles worked for Verizon Wireless, a great company, but has been getting more into internet marketing with Nutranomics as well as selling Health Insurance. We are grateful for the opportunities which have helped us get back to where we love. Charles continues to fly in the sky, he loves skydiving and high adventure trips, so it is fitting that he has been called to be the high adventure Young Men’s Leader for the Priests. However, the Bishop is NOT okaying skydiving…..yet!
I am just happy to be home and am finally over the bizarre reality that I have turned 30! Hum, maybe that is why I am doing the NuSkin Galvanic Spa, it is awesome and takes away my wrinkles!!! Let me know if you need any help in that area. Charles and I are now in our 8th year of marriage, it is great, however, I am glad the 7th is behind us. The past year has been filled with so many challenges and decisions, a lot of great, and a lot of total bummers. All in all, we have learned a lot, grown a lot and in the end are just really grateful we have each other and our 3 wonderful children. I still have my loan officer license, but am not active right now, so I have gone back to my dancing roots and have been teaching Zumba. Definitely not for the money, but it is a blast. I am trying to be really organized and clean, it is much easier that it was when Evan and Ava were 2, but man, still a work in progress…. We took care of my nieces for about 2 weeks, a 2.5 yr old and a 7 week old, and wow, I don’t think I left the house. 5 kids 5 and under about did me in. We will stick with 3! Which brings me to my little jems…
Lucy is 5.75! She will be 6 June 21st and continues to be my #1 helper, my sweetheart, my shoulder to cry on. She has lost 3 teeth (see pics). The first 2 teeth were the bottom 2, on the same day. (With a little help from mom….I guess I should admit that anytime my teeth were somewhat loose I would sit in front of the mirror until it was OUT!) Luckily, no tears were shed, until the 3rd. It was a doozy! She really wanted it out and it was quick. We are still working on the 4th (the front lt) so she wont have just 1 weird space on top. Ok enough about teeth! She continues to love Kindergarten and hasn’t minded that this is the 3rd teacher she has had! She has learned to adapt very well to change and I am so proud of her. She loves to read, color, spell, do beads, barbies, dance, ballet, play with friends, TEASE Evan and Ava to tears, jump and SWIM. Oh did I mention she loves to SWIM! We are soooooo glad we can swim at our pool! She is a maniac at the pool, I am wondering if she will be living at home, or in the water….TBD.
Evan is 3! OOOOOh girls, watch out, he is getting even more handsome. He just has this killer smile, hum, now if only we can get him to stop sucking his thumb! Don’t worry, it is still only in bed when he has his “silky”. That’s about the only tender sweet thing he does, other than kisses to me and Ava, oh and he does love to cuddle in the mornings with dad. BUT everything else is very manly. For instance, instead of a story and song at bedtime, it is a story about Ben 10, or Star Wars or Bumblebee, or his latest thing is….MONEY! He has Ava’s Tinkerbelle tin container on loan so he can put ALL his “monies” in it. He is really into it; it goes with us practically everywhere. Dad had to teach Evan the “correct” way to hold his money (which has a beaded handle) because he was hooking it around his elbow (like a woman holds a purse). Now he holds the girl tin very manly, don’t worry. Evan is intense but super sweet, especially to his little sis. He and Ava love to be silly! He will throw a royal fit and yell to high heaven, but that is not too often. I so enjoy watching these 2 little ones play. They play so well with each other, sometimes together, sometimes just paralleling, but almost always as sweet as can be. “Here you go Avers….you can have this one.” “Come on Ava, let’s go in my room and play.” He is a protector of Ava and I oh so cherish the relationship these 2 little spirits have. I feel blessed just to have them! Ev is excited to start Pre School in the fall and gymnastics with Ava. He is actually really strong….he and Ava started to swim yesterday with OUT floaties!!!!
Ava is 3! She is my dear sweet precious little one. I identify mostly with Ava, and it is a good thing, because she has her moments of utter determination, and at those times I have learned to breath deep, very deep and just be patient with her way of doing things. I have always said about Ava that she is sweet and sassy, still true. I have always said that she is determined, patient, persistent….still true. Ava is the silly one and the sweetheart, she is a little angel 95% of the time, and hellion 5%. She still LOVES her silkies and takes her baby or a princess tiny doll (or the toy of the day just like Ev) everywhere we go. Often we have to go on a “hunt” to find the baby or toy she MUST have in order to go to bed. Let me tell you, do not fight the battle, you will lose….determined. She loves tiny things, her and Ev love the Russian wooden doll my parents got that fit inside each other. Evan calls the heads, helmets! Ava finds the itty bitty baby (we call it) and carriers her around in her silky, or the dime size flounder, the smaller and more annoying to find, the better! But oh she is sweet, the other day I smashed my finger in a cupboard really hard and I was crying and it was bleeding, she cried with me and said, “should I go get Dusty.” (She is our cute neighbor friend.) She feels your emotion, she is sensitive and loves to help, she is a true peacemaker, just as daddy said she would be from the time she was 1 month old. She loves playing with Evan, toys-trains, princesses, dress-up, dancing, digging in the sand, playing with the bunnies, and she is for sure part fish too! She swims! She has always been brave but yesterday she was jumping off the edge (in the deep) she would come up and then swim to the side. One time I didn’t even help her! They are just 3! I guess I did put floaties on them when they were 4 months old….second nature I suppose.
I love where we are at. I feel like we have gotten to a great point in our lives with our kids, we can actually go to Disneyland (we did that for Christmas) and it was great, we didn’t have to take portacribs and all that jazz. Evan and Ava and Lucy are so fun, loving, teachable and they love going on adventures….which is good because Charles and I have always been ready for the next one. Here is to adventure. We pray 2009 is a wonderful adventure for each of you.
All our love and support, Charles, Andrea, Lucy Beth, Evan & Ava Maria