"I Luff Tanksgibing"

Its official.. my kids have crazy hair. Just like their mother ;) This is Ava and her abundant locks.

This crazy child is Landon at 2 and a half years old. Pre haircut.

The kids new hiding spot.

My mom had invited us to go to the Bass Pro Shop to take the kids to see Santa Clause and so I said sure. At the same time wondering why she just didn't want to go to the mall. Of all places, why the Bass Pro Shop. Not only is that place ALWAYS crazy full of people but now its probably over capacity due to Santa being there and offering FREE pictures with him!! So this picture below is of the happy campers while waiting for 2 1/2 hours for Santa.
This is Landon scoping out the giant fish tank with "Amma."
Him and some weird fish guy outside.
Ava was totally flirting with this dude.
And lastly, this little work of art was created by my lovely and artistic child Landon. he thought that the bathroom was too white and needed some color. I agree with him, lol.
As for the Thanksgiving holiday, we had planned to go to 3 but only ended up going to 2 dinners. The first was at my grampa's house in Rialto. The whole Crowley side was there with exception to the married cousins. So many people that there were tables set up in the garage and that was where we ate. We had done the same about 4 or 5 years ago as well, however back then it was freezing and not as pleasant. This time around the weather was beautiful. The second dinner we went to was at my dads. He has become quite the chef now and prepared the whole dinner by himself by choice. Everything from scratch! And it was SO good. The kids loved it, Landon's favorite was the ham and corn. Ava pretty much munched on green beans at both houses. Our third dinner was supposed to be in San Diego with Omar's family, however we didn't make it down there. Which I regret because his uncle was a chef in the Navy. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day. Friends, family and food, what more could you ask for? Christmas decorations here I come!!!

End of October & an early November.

Our little trip to the park was a success... Ava loves the swings and Landon finally went down the "big boy" slide.

He was all smiles the whole way down... :)

Scoping it out on the ladder.

He is definitely a looker.

My Ava Lou..

Halloween Time!!

As you can see the kids weren't too fond on having their pictures taken this year. The whole day they were both grumpy little kids and testing my nerves. I was seriously debating on skipping trick-or-treating because of it. However Omar talked me into getting into the festivities so we went to the church's trunk or treat and then onward to my dad's to collect from that neighborhood as well. Somewhere in that time span, Landon snapped Ava's fairy wand in half, got gum stuck to his sleeve and we lost Ava's cup.

These are Ava's little fairy wings and her little skirt.

As she gets older, I am being told that she looks more and more like me.. However I see my sisters in her more then myself.

My grumpy Buzz Lightyear. This kid is in desperate need of a haircut.



As you can see.. the kids are growing like daisies. And so are their tempers. This weekend we are going to a good friend of mines wedding. I am so beyond excited for her and partly for me because Omar and I decided to go kid free. ;)

Halloween Time...

So, October hasn't really been that eventful for us and I don't know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. The only milestone worth blogging about was Ava who is walking... like full on. She hasn't learned to run yet (whew) but she is starting to pick up speed. Landon likes to help his sister by giving her a bear hug and walking backwards with her. I wish I had a picture but the camera is dead and I just haven't gotten around to charging it.

As for the upcoming holiday, our apartment complex decided to have a patio/balcony decorating competition which got us super excited to participate. Problem was, we have like zero decorations. I got a couple things from Party City to put up on our balcony but other then that, it looks absolutely pityful. I am actually considering taking everything down and just not doing it at all. Theres caution tape on the front door which makes our apartment look like its quarantined. We went through 2 pumpkins already that died a gross death which consisted of black mold and collapsing. We got a third and its starting to collapse as well. Needless to say I can't wait til Halloween is over and Christmas is here, now Christmas I have decorations for :)

We also got the kids their costumes, Landon opted for Buzz Lightyear and I wasn't the least bit surprised and Ava is a fairy.. thing. lol Her costume has a skirt with danglies on it and a hair tye and wings and a wand. Don't worry, its not as scary as it sounds and I will soon post pictures of my little lovely in all her fairy glory.

OOHH! We also got a new tv too! A monsterous 52'' that Omar and his dad and our neighbor helped lugg up the stairs. I was standing at the top freaking out that they were gonna drop it and get hurt of course. But ya.. as I said, October has been a blah month. Hopefully November will be more eventful. This I know for sure, its chalked full of birthdays...

Lately

I fell off the blogging wagon for a bit, but I'm back. We are finally used to our new place and all its noises and neighbors. We have become accustomed to the people around us and their habits on certain days. The kids have also started to finally realize that we aren't going home, that we are home. Ava has yet to walk, instead she opts to crawl or do a "mogli" walk on all fours. She has also found a new hiding spot. She prefers underneath the bathroom sink. Here are the kids playing nicely, something I find very rare.

This little beauty is our corroded water heater that apparently was leaking onto the neighbors patio. The maintainence man knocked on our door and told me what was happening so I decided to snap a picture.

I also decided to include our little casita in this blog. However, blogspot reversed all my pictures on me, so they are all out of the order that I wanted to present them in. Oh well. The picture above is of the kids bathroom. Notice the potty training chair.. it doesn't get much use. It is primarily used for a stool when I give the kids a bath. Landon refuses to use it.


The picture below us of the hallway, you've seen one you've seen em all.

This is my tiny little kitchen. I have but one rule, only one cook allowed at a time. I want to hang something on that back wall but haven't found anything "kitcheny."

This is the view from the couch. After seeing this picture, Omar is desperate to find a bigger tv. I like the one we have. ;)

Here is what you see when you come in the door. My dining room/living room combo. We just recently put fish in the fish tank finally.


This is the master bath. Beyond that door is the shower/bath and toilet. We all know what happens in there.
Our bed. If you look closely, you'll see Landon sleeping somewhere in there.

This is my desk area.... a mess. Believe it or not, that laundry basket has clean clothes in it. I just haven't found the will power to put them away.

Here is the kids room... Landon has been opting to sleep in my bed lately.
This is Ava's side of the room. She is fast asleep in her crib here..

Other then that, we haven't been up to much. This week our friend is coming home from a mission in Hungary, so we're excited about that. We are also going to a concert on friday in Irvine to see Blink 182! I can't wait to see Omar's face for that. Also coming up is my date with the judge. I got my first ticket a while back and have to go to court and plead my case... or pay a $464 fine. BUMMER! All because I was stupid and lost and somehow lost the reaction to hit the brake when I saw a red light. It was wayyyy red when I went through it. Another thing about it was that it was one of those picture tickets, so I couldn't really talk my way out of that one, AND heres what takes the cake, we were on our way to the courthouse to pay for Omar's ticket!! Just my luck, so I'm hoping that the judge will take pity on my stupidity for direction and lower the fine. OHHH and tomorrow is my dad's birthday! Happy Birthday Dad!

Ava is 1

Ava turned 1 this past sunday. We hadn't decided if we could really afford a big party for her due to the recent move in, but last minute decided what the heck, she only turns 1 once right? We only had a couple family members over for a bbq, nothing as big as Landon's first birthday but we also took into account a sweet sixteen in about 15 years will make up for it.

She wasn't exactly sure what we wanted her to do at this point so she settled for just looking cute. It worked. This is the cake I made for her. The cake in the above picture is the free one we got from Staters. Mine tasted better though, lol.

Here she is, all dressed up and ready to party with the best of them. I don't know about you, but I see a little glipse of how she'll look as she gets older.

This was her diving into her cake, literally. As you can see I just put her birthday cake on her tray and let her go at it. She loved it and even managed to stick her feet in while we sang Happy Birthday. After this little frenzy her Aunt Sylvia took for a quick bath and then later rejoined the party to open presents.

Landon didn't really seem to mind that most of the attention was on his little sister, all he cared about was getting his piece of cake and ice cream and getting to play with Uncle Jake. As for the apartment, it is almost fully furnished and all the boxes have been disposed of. There are just a few more items that I want to get to make it feel more "homey" in here. Couple picture frames and some candles should do the trick. We are also in the market for a new tv since the one we had broke 3 days after moving in. May it rest in peace. So for a total of 5 days, the kids were without their cartoons and Disney movies, that of which I didn't mind a bit since Ive seen Finding Nemo, Cars, and The Little Mermaid more times then anyone should have to see them. Needless to say there has been a lot of book reading, singing, and dancing going on.

As for Omar, he loves his job and feels blessed to be in a field where people are always needed and will continue to grow. Next month there will be a new superviser position available that he is going for. So everyone cross your fingers and pray for him. As for me, I was due to go back to school this thursday, however with the move I am now out a babysitter. So I am going to try back for next quarter at Crafton Hills if a job doesn't come calling by then.

Moving on up....

Well, I haven't blogged in a while which is surprising. I felt the need for a break because to be honest, nothing exciting was happening, lol. We celebrated my 22nd birthday a couple weeks back, I saw we because my mom baked me a birthday cake that we all enjoyed and then I decided to just leave it on the table for the night because frankly I was too tired to deal with it. The next morning, my father in law accidently left the back door open and about 4 birds were in the kitchen enjoying my chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting. It was a gone-er. For presents I got the second book in the Twilight saga and I'm officially hooked. I can't wait til the movie comes out and am seriously thinking of joining all the screaming teenage girls with posters of Robert Pattinson. Omar frowns about that idea though. :( We also went to dinner/lunch with my older brother Greg, Stephanie and my little nephew Colton. The hostess sat us in the middle of the place and tried to configure 3 highchairs into a booth... I don't know what she was trying to accomplish and she was obviously getting frustrated so I told her it was ok, I'd just sit the 2 older boys in the booth with us. It was hilarious because as she came to our section to seat more people, the people would take one look at the kids and request to be seated farther away.. lol. I had to laugh. Heres a couple pictures from our noisey lunch.

This is Gregory and the little man Colton, he was getting ancy so I grabbed a quick fix from my purse... a mirror! Granted it only had his attention for another couple seconds.

Heres Landon... he did pretty good, but pretty much neglected his food the whole time instead opting for the chocolate milk. After lunch, we decided to go to Victoria Gardens for a little walk, BAD idea because it was oh a thousand degrees out. So we let the little ones soak it up at the water fountains. I admit I wanted to join in however there seemed to be an age limit, 0-5.

In other news, Ava has started waving and clapping her hands together! I can't believe she is going to be 1 soon. Time flew. We also started apartment hunting a couple weeks ago and I am very proud and thrilled to say that we found one, we were approved and we move in August 8th! Its a roomy 2 bedroom 2 bathroom place. I love it and can't wait to move in already. Right now we are just moving over utility stuff, insurance, etc. We sign the 2 inches of leasing paperwork next week and I just can't wait for everyone to see it. Granted we are going to be pretty much broke til next year, but thats okay. It's all part of growing up right? Right? : / We shall just have to wait and see I guess.

I FOUND MY SISTER!!

After years of searching, 10+ to be exact, I have finally found my baby sister Rebecca!Isn't she pretty?! As usual in my weekly routine, I type her name in on all the major networking sites and usually I don't come up with anything. BUT today was different, today I found her. I sent her a message just to be sure that it was her before I jumped all over her. In the message I put, "Rebecca, is your mom's name Stephanie and were you born in August?" thats it. Because, well thats all I knew about her. When I got her reply, I almost jumped out of my seat, "yes... why?" Thats when I pretty much told her, well I'm your older sister, we have the same dad. I was so excited that I finally found her I didn't stop to think, well wait, what if she doesn't know about me? What if her mom never mentioned me? Did I just start a bunch of drama between her and her mom? However, she said she had known of me, but didn't know anything else. Only that I and our older brother and sister existed. So we went back and forth through messages, she has a band called "Becky and the Blacktones" and they are really really good.. AND they are actually going to be performing at the O.C. Fair. So I have made it my mission to get out there and see her. I am soo excited that I have finally found her and that soon I'm going to get the chance to meet her. Its truly never to late to find your family.