Splash Park!

I took the girls to the Splash Park, it was Ava's first time. Last year, Carli kind of liked it but wasn't a big fan of all the people nor having her face wet. Ava could care less! I need to get her little excited laugh on video because it is the most precious, purest little laugh you'll ever hear! I heard it a lot at the Splash Park! Carli did well, and she had fun. Eventually, she even got wet. It helped that we were the only people there at 9 in the morning now that school as started.

Carli figured out that she was big enough to step on the water and stop it and every time she squealed with delight when it popped back up after she took her foot off!

And yes, she did try to catch the water in her mouth.

Pure joy!

This is seriously less than a minute after turning her loose! She had a ball!

Next time I should remember to bring the cups and buckets and we may have stayed longer than 30 minutes! Mornings are a little hard because Ava hasn't dropped her morning nap so we had to scoot on home and let the little Angel have her sleep. :)

Carli's First Sleepover

Sunday night was a big night for the Hays - it was Carli's first sleepover. Kenzie came over to spend the night because her Momma, Kori, was being induced at the insanely early hour of 5 am the next day. It was an adventure for those 24 hrs having three little girls all under the age of three in our home, but we survived and so did Kori! :)

Kenzie arrived right about 7:30 which is bath time in our house. Even though Kenzie already had had her bath, she was not going to be left out! This girl loves her baths! She was the first in and the last out.

Keeping with the nightly routine, while I was putting Ava to bed Keith and the girls enjoyed a couple of episodes of good ol Dora the Explorer. Kenzie really was enthralled with it. I had to apologize to her parents if she is now addicted! But at least we have someone to suffer with us now.

With our show over, it was time to brush our teeth, say our prayer and go to bed!


Do you know what an absolute miracle with would have been had all three girls successfully slept all night long in the same room?! Ha! After 30 minutes of some squealing and giggles, we moved Kenzie to our room so they would sleep. Within 10 minutes of being separated, both girls were sound asleep! We were so thankfully everyone slept all night long!

Monday morning started off with a good breakfast, a picture text sent to Kori from Kenzie wishing her good luck and then it was off to the park!

We did a lot of swinging...

Ava wore herself out trying to keep up with the big girls.

I caught them all in the same spot, sitting still...it was less than a second before they were all going in separate directions again!

After a quick rest, they discovered that the play ground had sand...lots and lots of sand. Between the extremely crazy hot weather, juice and sand, I had some wonderfully dirty children on my hands!

We headed back home to put Ava down for a nap and let the older girls play in the water outside. We had a swimming pool full of bubbles!! Too bad I still needed to bathe them to get the dirt out of their hair!
The girls tried very hard to get the bubbles from their swimming pool to blow bubbles from their bubble wands. After an intense 3 minutes of huffing and puffing they declared the bubbles were broke and moved on to "washing" the porch.


We must have flat wore Kenzie out! After water time was over and Ava woke up, it was baths all around then time for lunch. At 11:30, Kenzie put herself down for a nap and slept 2.5 hrs! So she was waking up about the time Carli and Ava went down for their naps. Since I just had one child to take care of for the moment, we decided to make Kori some extra peanut buttery chocolate no bake cookies. I think Kenzie thoroughly enjoyed eating the peanut butter off the knife!


After a long day for Kori, she had a C-Section about 4:30. We made it that long with no major incidents or melt downs so I was pretty pleased with us all. As we were preparing to go have dinner and take Kenzie to see her new baby brother, Kenzie decided to give sleeping Chuy a good love pat and he snapped at her. Got her right over her left eye. I was so upset as was Kenzie! She had some nice teeth impressions and a little gash. The swelling wasn't too bad b/c we got ice right on it but I was pretty bummed that that had happened. Kenzie didn't cry much but informed me that she didn't like dogs any more. :(

Finally, after some dinner (three children in Bueno with two parents, I think we lost) we headed to the hospital to meet little Hayden. He is so so sweet! He looks like his Daddy to me. I didn't get a good picture of him as we didn't stay too long since it was really family time and the grandparents were just getting there to see their new grandbaby for the first time...but I did snag one quick picture before we left out...

All in all, our first sleep over was a success! Although this Momma was worn out but I'm sure not near as worn out as Ms. Kori was after her long day of labor. Carli is asking where "her Kenzie" is all the time now and has named all her babies Hayden. :)

Finger Painting Fun!

Last week we had two play dates, two days in a row! Carli and I made homemade finger paint and on Tuesday Kenzie and Kori came over for a morning play date. Kori was so so ready to have little Hayden and who can blame her? It was 100+ degrees outside and she was nine months pregnant! Kenzie was a natural finger painter! She didn't hesitate about sticking her how hand right in!!

Carli on the other hand used her index finger and painted on the upper right hand corner...Kenzie painted the rest!

So dainty!

I thought Ava would jump in on the painting but she only wanted to watch and tried once to get in on the fun. Could be it was too close to nap time.

Finally Kenzie convinced Carli to try the full hand painting!!

On Wednesday, we tried finger painting with Riley and Sarah. Carli apparently was okay with the paint this time around, only she decided to paint herself instead of the paper. Riley jumped right in and was all into painting!

Riley was so into painting he did full body painting! He even painted with his feet!

We had a lot fun on our play dates last week! Thanks Kenzie, Kori, Riley and Sarah for coming over!

Baby Shea-Shea

Carli has started calling Shea, "My Baby Shea-Shea." Every morning she pops up and asks, "Where's my baby Shea-Shea?" She's very serious about it too! She wants so badly for Shea to let her carry her around and hold her but Shea is not a dumb little dog! So last Saturday we had to go into town to get Daddy a much deserved Sonic Drink and run into the hardware store. Carli asked if her Baby Shea-Shea could go, and I couldn't say no!

When we stopped at Sonic, Carli begged to roll down her window and kept calling Shea to come sit in her lap. I helped a little, but tell me this isn't one of the cutest things you've ever seen?!

Carli was so pleased that Shea sat still while Carli held her.

I think Carli was telling Shea what a good puppy she was, and that she sure loved her!

Shea told Carli she loved her too!

Now Carli wants Shea to come with us on more car rides, but hey, that's a sacrifice worth making! :)

A Play Date with Cousin Logan

Logan came home with Grammy and Pa from our Smith Family get together. Monday morning we met up with Logan and Grammy at the Discovery Science Center for a couple of hours of fun. I told Sassy she really owed me for wearing the girls completely out that morning! She pretty much only had to show up and they went to sleep the whole time she was there!

Logan really enjoyed the DSC. It had a lot of things that were perfect for his age.

All three really like the gravity room, which is basically a lot of miniature golf ball roller coasters. We spent a lot of time in that room!

Of coarse Ava loved it b/c there were lots and lots of yellow golf balls!

The other favorite spot was the grocery store. All three kids "shopped and shopped." Logan really enjoyed "checking out." He even made the "beep-beep" (scanner) noise as he unloaded his items.

Ava is pretty dangerous when you give her a miniature buggy! And I have to say it is one of the cutest things I have ever seen when she starts putting things in the buggy. She loves to copy the two older kids. After she was done shopping, she even took her cart over to the check out stand and started unloading it!

Carli was my little "momma." I didn't get too many pictures of her b/c she was busy shopping, cleaning and cooking! She was never still!

Ava found this hat in the dress up area and would pretend to put it on, but she never actually let it touch her head!

Logan and Carli in the firetruck. Logan is a brave little boy to be letting Carli drive!

We shopped, we played and now we were hungry! So Logan, Carli and Ava whipped us up some lunch!

What other restaurant can you go to that offers doctor services in house?

We finally convinced the kids it was time for some real food so we met Keith for lunch at Daniel Boone's so that Logan could have a corn dog. You know you've had a good morning with the kids just eat and eat and eat!

It was a fun play date! Carli and Ava even got to spend most of the day on Tuesday at the lake with Logan, Grammy and Pa. Momma was at work so I didn't get any pictures but from all account and from the tired girls I took home with me, it was a good day!

Smith Family Get Together

Last Saturday was our annual Smith Family Get Together in Aledo. We made the most of the timing and headed out early so we could visit with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Megan in Fort Worth. The girls LOVE his house because they can literally run circles through it. Plus their living room is sunken and Ava absolutely loves going up and down the step! We got in a short visit and grabbed lunch before we left to head to Aledo.

We started getting together for my Grandmother's birthday (which is August 11th). It seemed easier to get together at the end of summer instead of trying to get the whole bunch of us together at Christmas. We are a good size group! My Mom has three sisters and a brother. I think there are 14 grandkids, and now there are spouses of grandkids and even great-grand babies! So, yes, it is a good sized group. When my Grandmother passed away, we kept on with our get togethers. This year we had a decent turn out. We missed Uncle Tone being there, something about Law School finals... :) And there were a few other cousins who couldn't make it, but all the Aunts and Uncles were there, and it made for a good time. We missed our annual singing - this side of the family really has some awesome voices - and it always makes me smile to hear the songs they sing. Really reminds me of Grandfather and Grandmother. But we all did have a good visit and enjoyed each others company.

The kiddos especially enjoyed playing together. They LOVE to wrestle with Pa!

Ava LOVES to climb into seats and just sit. So Uncle Tom found a couple of child sized chairs from years past when my cousins were little and brought them out. Ava was thrilled!

She especially loved this one because she could stand and "direct" traffic for the two older kiddos.

Being the musically inclined side of the family, I caught a good picture of Mom's brother, Uncle Tom (different from Uncle Tom who found Ava some chairs), teaching our second cousin Trinity how to put together a clarinet. All three of the little ones were quite intrigued with the whole process.

Saturday evening on our way to the hotel, we stopped by and visited the graveyard where my grandparents are buried. It was a bittersweet time.

After a scenic drive through the backroads of Weatherford, we arrived at our hotel that Uncle Andy snagged an awesome deal on. It was a really nice hotel and the kids couldn't wait to go swimming!!

Carli spent much of her time thinking about getting in the water. It took her a good 45 minutes to finally get off the steps in the pool. I think this is funny that she has no fear of the lake, but this clear water kind freaks her out! She would go back and forth between the pool and the hot tub.

Cousin Logan on the other hand had no fear of the water! His swimming lessons have paid off! He LOVES to jump into the water and even once jumped over his Daddy!

After 45 minutes, we had about given up on Carli venturing out into the pool. But she surprised us all and took off across the length of the pool after a ball. She did this a few times and wore herself out just in time to call it a night!

Ava has no fear! She spent the entire time walking to and from the hot tub and pool. She wore me out! Because she didn't just walk from one to the other, she would try to walk right off the edge into the water! So, I held her hand and Grammy would catch her in the hot tub and Pa caught her in the pool. Usually she was carrying a ball or attempting to throw it.

She didn't stay in one spot long. After she stepped off into the water, she was done and would try to walk right up the side of the pool/hot tub to head the other direction.

Sunday there was no time to sleep in! Actually who could sleep in when you share a room with a one and two year old?! We got all packed up and headed out to eat breakfast at one of Grandmother's favorite spots, R&K Cafe. It was AWESOME!

Pa gave the kids a lift down the hall, to the elevator and pretty much delivered them to the car with the luggage of coarse!

We finished breakfast and went to church at Aledo Church of Christ where my parents got married in 1977. I actually still remembered some of the people from when we used to visit growing up!

Before we all headed home, we stopped in Arlington and had lunch at Kincaids, then Mom and I got to shop at JoAnn Fabrics.

It was a great weekend of family fun, kind of like a mini vacation! Thanks Uncle Andy for convincing us to stay the night on Saturday! It was worth it!