What the?!

Usually it happens during the teenage years...


But it looks like Naiya has hit the Goth stage a little early.


I don't know what kind of cult tattoos these are...


Hopefully, she'll grow out of it quickly.

Happy Easter!!

So we had a busy day before Easter with 2 egg hunts, a work conference, a visitor from out of town, a date night doubling with Azure and Michael, and a guys night for Bo after that.
Here are some of the cuter moments...


Excited for the egg hunt!


Melia's still excited....Naiya's gotten a little impatient.


And the hunt is on!


Found one!


Whoah! Score!


Counting their spoils!


I can't believe we got a family picture where almost everyone is smiling and looking at the camera! (We only had to take about 10 other shots to get this.)


Cute little Easter bunny!


Uncle Jefe was in town and stopped by for a visit. We can't wait til you guys move here in June!


On to our second Easter egg hunt of the day at our friends, Sean and Callie's. The kids had fun and got more candy than they knew what to do with!


Naiya and her friend, Zalia, on the "easy" side of the egg hunt.


"Cannee!", as Naiya would say.

We had a great Easter day also. Church was really good and we really felt the spirit of the Lord there. It helped us remember why we have an Easter to begin with. We spent the afternoon at Bo's Aunt Kathie and Uncle Craig's house and had fun seeing family we haven't seen in a long time. It was so good to catch up with Bo's cousin, Kyle, who just got home from a mission in Korea. Melia hadn't seen him since she was about Naiya's age, but bonded with him again in no time! The girls both had so much fun playing with everyone! We even had a big double rainbow on our way home. What a way to end Easter! Haven't uploaded pictures yet, but I may just surprise myself and actually get back to posting them here soon. :)

Naiya--Officially 2!

Even though she holds up 3 fingers when you ask her how old she is. Is this a sign of things to come? Fake ID when she's underage maybe?


We went to the park and had a picnic for her birthday on Saturday. The weather was beautiful!


We even got to wear shorts and flip flops! Yay! It was fun to watch Melia take care of Naiya on the slides and stuff. They are so cute together. Naiya even went down the big slide by herself! She's getting so big.


Seeing Naiya's awesome Chewbaca cake for the first time. Our friend Fawn, master cake maker, made it for us. Naiya just stared at it for a few seconds and then smiled and pointed "Baca!".


Here's Naiya on birthday day number 2 sporting her "surprised" look.


We had a little birthday dinner for her with our family friends. Thanks for the wonderful enchiladas Auntie Azie!


The cake looked great and tasted great! As she was eating, Naiya kept looking at the cake on her plate and saying, "Baca head!"


Adorable Lilly with Grandma Laura. :)


Here's Naiya modeling her new birthday outfit.


The girls got into a big tissue paper war with Josh. They had so much fun!!

Happy Birthday Bubby!! :)

Back Street's Back Alright!

I'm back! And I've come to the realization that the long list of things I wanted to blog about is never going to be blogged about. So I'm just starting now. Well, actually I'm going to combine the 3 most important things that have happened this year.
First, Melia turned 5! My little girl is growing up!


Dear Melia,
Happy Birthday! You are getting so big! You are finishing up preschool right now and you just love it. You especially love your teacher, Miss Pamela. You even asked me one time if she could be your mom and I could be your big sister. :) You are so smart and you are learning so many cool things at school. You always share random things you have learned and sometimes you even teach me some things I didn't know. You are a great big sister to Naiya and you still love to play with her and make her laugh. You two love sharing your room and you are great at helping her with what she needs. I love to watch you two together. When daddy gets home from work each night, you love to have him throw you up in the air 3 times every single night. You are very kind and thoughtful and you help me remember to be joyful in life. Daddy and I love you sooooo much and we are so happy that we get to be your parents.
Love Always,
Mommy

Event #2 Naiya's birthday (which will be happening this Saturday, but she gets her letter a little early.)


Dear Naiya,
Happy birthday to my little chub chubs! You are going to be 2 and I can't believe it! You are so full of life and joyfulness and you make me smile every day. You are learning so much from your big sister. You copy almost everything she does. You love to laugh and are learning to talk more and more every day. You currently love Ariel from the Little Mermaid and carry Melia's Ariel doll around with you everywhere you go. She bought that doll with her own money that she earned, so you are very blessed to have a nice big sister who shares her things with you. You are learning to share too and you LOVE to dance! You love me and your daddy and Melia and we are so glad we get to have you in our family! We love you soooo much!
Love Always,
Mommy

Event #3 We're pregnant!
And we are excited! I'm especially excited to be out of the first trimester now. 3 months hit and it was like I felt better over night. No nausea for me anymore. Yay! We think it would be nice to have a boy since we already have two girls, but we will be more than happy to have a girl too. Melia has her heart set on a baby brother though.

So there's the update on us. I plan to be more consistent with blogging again. I want to have some kind of record of our lives. :)

Prince Flynn or Chip n Dales Dancer?

Melia accidentally dropped her new Prince Flynn into the bathtub and got his clothes all wet. After taking off his wet clothes, I discovered that he may be moonlighting in a different profession...

Ode to Naiya Bo Biaya

I just want to take a minute and talk about my little chub chubs. She is growing so fast and she does so many cute things and I want to remember them and the only way I remember things lately is to write them down. So here it goes. Naiya is about 19 1/2 months old now and she is a little character! She loves to laugh and act silly. She does this thing where she rolls her eyes back in her head and rocks side to side like Stevie Wonder. It's so funny and I think she does it even more because it makes us all laugh so much.

She is a dancing machine! Everywhere we go, if she hears music, she stops what she's doing and dances. Last week, we were at the mall and I came to the realization that most of the stores have music playing in them. What made me notice? Naiya's journey through the mall went something like this: Walk, walk, walk. Hear music in a store. Stop. Dance, dance, dance. Mommy: "Come on Naiya." Walk, walk, walk. Hear music in next store. Stop. Shake booty. Mommy: "Come on Naiya." Walk, walk.....Needless to say, it took us like a half hour to get through one hallway of the mall. We couldn't tear her out of the Christmas section at Walmart...they were playing Christmas music.

Naiya babbles up a storm with more words becoming coherent now. I often wonder what all she is saying in her babbling. I know she knows what it means because she will come up to me when I am doing the dishes and say, "Mommy, babble, babble babble..." and then, after I acknowledge what she said, she seems satisfied that she has delivered her message and walks away.

Naiya loves her Daddy and gets so excited when she hears the garage door opening in the evening. She toddles over to the door and says, "Daddy? Daddy?" and waits for him to come in. She loves playing with her big sister, Melia, too. They crack each other up!
I totally understand the old saying "bundles of joy" now that we have two of our own. They are truly a joyful blessing in our lives and we are so grateful!

Halloween Solo

So this Halloween Bo decided to get a bad head cold and sleep through the whole weekend, which left me flying solo to do all of the Halloween fun having with the girls. The nerve of him--I mean, poor Bo. :) Just kidding. It really was fun, just a lot of work.


Melia decided to be Ariel this year...


So of course, we had to have her trusty side kick Sebastian come along too. (Yes, it is actually a lobster head, but close enough!)

On Friday night, we went to a Halloween Carnival in Lehi with our friends, the Saavedras and the Votaws. They had tons of games, trick or treating, movies...everything Halloween you could think of and it was packed!


Here's us when we first got there with Melia and Naiya looking a little dazed and confused at all of the chaos. At first, Melia didn't want to play any games or smile for pictures....and I'm thinking "Ok, I didn't just get everybody all dressed up by myself and drive an hour in traffic to get here so you can not have fun, did I?" Luckily, she snapped out of it pretty quickly and started enjoying it.


Here's Melia with Sierra and Naya (sp?), two of our friends' kids.


Here's the whole gang hanging out on a huge purple spider.

The night was fun, but I was wearing very high heel boots and trying to keep track of two kids in a big crowd, so needless to say, after the long drive back home, I was worn out.

Next day: Trick or Treating!


Here's Melia doing her impression of Risky Business as we try to get ready.


Grandma Sue stayed home to hold down the fort as all of the Trick or Treaters came by.


The nice thing about our neighborhood is we know pretty much everybody that we were trick or treating to. Here's Melia's friend, Brooke, that we picked up along the way. I had a lot of fun watching the girls run up to each door so excited! The only bad part was that I had to carry Naiya almost the whole way and I was wearing uncomfortable shoes again. Why, you ask? Well, I tried not to. I thought, "There's no way I'm wearing those boots again. What can I wear instead? Disco mamas don't wear tennis shoes. I guess I'll just wear some of my lower dress shoes." Turns out those dress shoes weren't so comfortable for running around after two little girls while carrying a 1 1/2 year old all over the neighborhood. Go figure. Anyway, we had fun seeing all of our friends trick or treating too. We saw some of my kids from the 6 year old class I teach at church and they were a little blown away that it was actually their teacher under the huge fro! It was fun. :)


Here's Naiya checking out the spoils of her conquest.
Lots of fun, but we all got Daddy's cold the next day. :(