Schooltime Again

August in Arizona means back to school. Ava is now in the 4’s preschool class – and excited to be with her friends!

First day of the new school year…

Patiently waiting on her star for class to start.

Ava showing off her creations.

Posing at the sandbox.

Playing (and playing dress up) with friends.

More dress up time

Working on an art project

Practicing scissor skills

And another art project.

Ava’s classroom theme is the Dr. Seuss. Everyone gets to take the Cat in the Hat home for a night (or two) to take pictures. Ava got the Cat over the weekend, which meant that the Cat got to go to her ballet class.

The Cat also went for a ride in the bike trailer.

Ava thought hard about letting Ali play with the Cat…

Ava is thoroughly enjoying school – she can’t wait for school days and loves her teachers…

Fun around the house

Some of our best moments are when we are at home. Here are some of the fun adventures around the house from the last few months…

Sometimes there is nothing better than making a fort in the house for the kids to play with…here they are showing off one of our latest ones.

Ava love driving around the house in Ali’s new car….

…and racing around pushing Ali in it too!

Ali and Ava are such great pals already – here they are playing in bed in the morning.

Later Ava gets to help Mom make some popsicles.

Ali is a hat girl – here she is with the fireman’s hat.

while Ava expresses her love for Pepper (just like she did with Chase).

Ali is starting to develop a little skill at musical performance.

Click the image above for a video of Ali playing

Of course we do have to get out to the neighborhood parks as well. Here’s Ava with an Ali sprouting out of her head…

More posts to come soon….

Pooltime Fun

Dad the gadget guy decided we needed a waterproof camera to use in the pool. Of course he was right…it is fun to have for pictures in the pool and underwater. Some of our first photos (and video) are below.
Eyes wide open.

Getting ready to dive…

Going for the dive toy.
Our little mermaid…

Cruising along the water.

And along the bottom

Racing for the wall…

Click the image above for a video of Ava diving

Professional Photos

We decided to have some professional photos done around the girls’ birthdays. Here are some highlights:

Birthday “Staycation”

After a year’s worth of request from Ava to go to the water slides, for Ali’s birthday we did a staycation at The Princess Resort near our house. Now we are bombarded with the “when can we do that again” from Ava…

A night at the resort was a great getaway – we took full advantage of the pools, water slides, and enjoying walks around the resort property. Here are some highlights.

“Fancy” Ava is chilling in the car on the way there.

Yes it is hot – 115!

Our first order of business? Why the pool of course. Ali likes the zero entry pool so can crawl right in.

A brief moment of sitting still…

 

In addition to the pool and the water slides (no photos of it unfortunately), Ava had fun with the sand as well. She helped some boys make sand castles.

While Ali was fascinated with Dad’s hat.

Soon Ali discovered the sand as well.

And even better, it is messy!

Having all of us in a single room was not exactly smooth. That evening the girls (finally) fell asleep after a while (mostly after driving Ali around for a bit).

The next morning Ali was ready to check out the view from the balcony.

While big sister was more interested in exploring the resort. Here she is pausing for a short rest.

Then we were back at the pool and the sand. Ava is hard at work on her castles.

And proud of her work!

Ali is working on her “princess” pose.

It was a fun getaway right in our backyard…something we will do again…