Memory Lane With Brother Ricky

And now a quick trip down the sleepy time lane with Brother Ricky. This trip isn't quite as long. Again, thank you for indulging me. Mom feels really sentimental about the kids today.

About 5 days old. Having good dreams?

Dad and his boy having a nice nap.

First time in the big crib. About 2 months old.

Asleep in the exersaucer. Got a bit too much exercise? About 3 months old.

Cuddling with Sissy in the morning. About 4 months old.

First Christmas. All those presents wore him out and we hadn't even had breakfast yet. 8 months old.

And here we have him cuddling up to a blanket on the floor. He didn't have a blanket preference like Sissy did at that age, any old blanket would do. 9 months old.

Its a hard job doing all that playing, but someone has to do it. Let me just take a nap first, okay? 10 months old.

Cozied up to the fire in the hotel room up in Salt Lake while visiting with cousins Mason and Tanner. 1 year old.

I love when the butt goes up in the air like this. 1 year old.

And here we end up with this taken just a few days ago. He crawled under his crib to play and fell fast asleep. My little man, I'm smitten.

Sleepy Time With Princess Kayla

Well, we don't have alot to report right now. We are getting ready to head down to my mom's for the 4th of July and then heading on to Las Vegas for a bit of Mommy/Daddy down time. I just thought I'd put a few cute pictures of the kids on. I love to see how my kids fall asleep. Kayla doesn't fall asleep in weird places anymore but she used to. Here is a little past history on her sleeping....

Here she is at 5 months. She used to do this in my tummy too...burrow her head into tight spaces.




This is the bear she has slept with since birth. This was the first time she cuddled him...she was about 7 months old.


Here she is at about a year old sleeping with Nana Katie. I love when the tongue makes its way out.








Valentine's Day when she was 2 years old she seperated the growth plates in her arm and had to wear a splint for 2 weeks. Her medication made her sleep alot.



2 years old...fell asleep watching a movie in her Barbie chair.






Also 2 years old...her 3 B's: Binkie, Blanket, Bear. Her essentials for a good nights sleep.



Isn't this cute? Fell asleep watching a movie in the rocking chair. 3 years old.

Her first night in her Big Girl Bed. 3 years old.

Waiting for Mom to read a bedtime
story took longer than she could wait. 3 years old.






Last but not least. This was the picture that inspired this trip down memory lane. You can't see it but she has her Blanket and Bear all tucked under the covers with her. What she doesn't have is Binkie. Almost every picture we have of her sleeping she has a Binkie, but, with great personal sacrifice to her personal comfort, she has given up the Binkie. My baby isn't a baby anymore. She will tell you with great sincerity that she is a Big Girl now and Ricky is a baby. I couldn't help thinking back over her short life so far and getting sentimental. Thanks for indulging me.

Father's Day and Haircuts

Well, Father's Day has come and gone. We started a bit early here at Casa Chavez. We got Rick a new weed whacker for Father's Day and as he does the lawn on Saturday, he got his gift one day early. This turned out to be a good thing. First off, we got a big wind/rain storm Saturday afternoon. Second, Rick got really sick Saturday night and spent all day Sunday in bed. Didn't get to make his breakfast in bed or his special dinner that day. This is all about me, of course, and how it affected me. Okay, just kidding.

Today was another day of firsts for our son, Ricky. We gave him his first haircut. He has beautiful curls that I have just loved. He has had more hair than Kayla ever had her first year. Her second year too, now that I think about it. Kayla's curls have almost completely disappeared now but at least she is getting some length finally. So, back to Ricky and his curls.

I promised Rick when he was born that he could shave his head. Then he had to wear the helmet for a while and we decided to wait until that came off. Then we decided to wait for summer when Rick always shaves his head too. So it finally happened. We shaved my baby's head. As you can see, he didn't think it was too fun. But look at the finished product.

How cute is that? He doesn't even look like the same boy anymore.

On a completely different subject....

Kayla was in the kitchen with me the other day as I was making lunch. She got the broom out and said she needed to clean. So as she was sweeping, I realized she was singing "papa can you hear me?" over and over. I asked her where she learned that and she told me "I saw it on the tv anesterday, remember?" (anesterday means not just yesterday but any other time period other than the present--so it can mean tomorrow or a few minutes or hours ago as well.) I remembered then that we had watched the movie "Yentl" about 3 weeks ago and she remembered the song. She also came up to Rick and I today asking to hear "gotta get get" which is her way of asking for The Black Eyed Peas song "Boom Boom Pow". That's how she remembers it. She is also really into "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. She shakes that little booty like nobody's business.

Princess Rock Star and the Firefighter

Rick usually goes to the fire station every Tuesday for his volunteer training and other various tasks. For the last few weeks, the firfighters have been going door to door to get donations for the Christmas decorations that are put up throughout the town. They get all dressed up in uniform and bring out the fire truck. Rick had taken Kayla with him a few times but this past Tuesday, she stayed home with me. They were going to be on our street that night so I left the front door open with the gate up so the kids could watch for him without running up and down the street. When they finally made it to our house, we went out to see and I took some pictures of Rick driving the fire truck.

While we were waiting, Kayla decided she needed to dress up in one of her princess dresses that she got for Christmas last year. She has been doing this almost everyday for the past 2 weeks. It goes in phases for her. She has also been telling us for about a month that she is a rock star. She runs around singing at the top of her lungs for more hours of the day then I care to think about. She has been using whatever she can find as a microphone--hairbrushes, spoons, sippy cups, even her brothers bottles. We finally broke down and bought her a little play Hannah Montana microphone. She was so excited because she loves "Hannah Montama." So, back to my story. We were waiting for Daddy to come by on the firetruck and she is wearing her princess dress. Ricky was playing with the microphone which meant Kayla had to take it away from him because he is not allowed to touch her "stuff." She then put on a little concert for me. She sang her little heart out and was hitting notes worthy of Mariah Carey. Her favorite song to sing is what I simply call "The Rock Star." She sings "I'm a Rock Star" over and over at different decibels and octaves. She has quite a large range for someone so young. Anyway, here are some pictures of my Princess Rock Star. Hope everyone enjoys.

And of course I need to put some pictures of my little man on here. He got stuck in a little organizer that we have. We are going to throw it out though because the kids have ruined it climbing all over it. It was cute when he got stuck in it though. I know I shouldn't laugh but couldn't help it. He didn't cry or anything just sat there patiently waiting for me to get him out.


I know I put alot of pictures this time but can't resist. I'm rather proud of my family. Ricky is famous at our house for falling asleep sitting or even standing up. Lucky he usually has something to keep him from falling as you can see.

Nightmare Crabs

Kayla had a nightmare a couple nights ago that I thought was worth recording. She woke up at around 12:30 am crying for mom, so I went in to see what was wrong and she said "The crabs is getting me!" To explain this, I'll go back to earlier that day....

We had gone to Walmart to get groceries. She always likes to go to the pet department to see the fish. That day they had in stock some Fiddler Crabs. For those that don't know what these are, they have one really long claw and one tiny claw. This was the first time we had seen these types of crabs but they had some familiar little "normal" crabs there as well. Kayla was fascinated by these.

So she had a dream that crabs were getting her. I explained that the crabs were at the store and not at our house so they couldn't get her. She said, "Oh, okay," then promptly lay back down and went to sleep.

I asked her about the dream the next day and her explanation had me rolling on the floor. I wish I could put it here exactly as she said it but I won't be able to do it justice. She told me that the crabs were gonna get her but just the red ones. The red ones would "pinching" her but not the black ones. The black ones would "tickle tickle tickle" and she proceeded to show me how the black ones would walk on her face, tickling her. Then she went back to elaborate on how the red ones would come after her and "pinching pinching hard and hurt me really too bad." I'm not sure where the red crabs came from as we haven't seen any of those except perhaps Sebastian from the Little Mermaid. Oh well, it was so cute, I had to share.

I showed her these pictures just now and she said, "Holy moly, it's the crabs!" She is a crack up!

Gramma Kiki's Visit

We had a visit from Rick's mom, Kiana, and her husband, Tony, this week. They came down on Thursday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon. The kids were so happy to see them. Kayla has recently started calling Kiana, Gramma Kiki. Kiki is the nickname that Rick's family has for Kayla and somehow she linked it to Gramma and it stuck for her. So now she has a Gramma Kiki, Nana Katie, and a Grammy Deb. That's what she calls all her grammas.
Anyway, she had a great time with her grandparents. They took the kids to the park on Friday afternoon. We went to the Milford car show and had dinner Friday night. The cars were so fun to look at, but since it was at the park, Kayla just wanted to play.
Saturday morning we took Gramma and Grampa shooting. They did pretty good. Then that afternoon we went back to the car show. There were more cars this time and Rick had alot of fun looking around. Once again, since it was at the park, I spent most of my time at the playground with Kayla. She lives to slide.
The rain interrupted our fun time, though and we had to go home. The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. The kids hated to see Gramma and Grampa go home. Rick and I did too...we loved having someone to distract the kids for a while!

Visiting cousins

We stayed with my brothers children in May while they celebrated their anniversary in Las Vegas. Kayla and Ricky had so much fun playing with their cousins. They don't get to see each other that much so when they do get together they make the most of it. I took them to a place called Jungle Jim's Playground, which has games to play and some kiddie rides too. Kayla would not go on the rides at first but once she warmed up it was hard to get her off of them. She really loved the ride that went round and round in circles at a pretty fast speed and then stopped and went backwards for a bit. She was so brave, she kept putting her hands up in the air like her cousins. Mason was so cute to sit on the outside because he was the biggest so he didn't want to squish Tanner and Kayla.

We also went to Sugarhouse Park one day. After playing for a while on the playground, we took the kids (Tanner, Kayla, and Ricky) to see the ducks at the pond. We didn't have anything to feed them but that didn't stop them from "charging" us. Tanner and Kayla got pretty scared and Tanner screamed pretty loud. It was funny for me and Rick, but not so much for the kids. Although, they do like to tell the story now about how Uncle Rick/Daddy "kicked the ducks butts" and saved them. Rick was the hero of the day. Wish we had gotten pictures of that but I was too busy shooing ducks and holding Tanner out of harms way. Funny how my role in this was completely forgotten....

It was fun to spend that time with my nephews. We can't wait to see them all again.

First Zoo Trip

On May 16, 2009, we made our first trip to Hogle Zoo. This was the first zoo trip for both kids. Kayla had been so excited all day to see the elephants so that was the first place we went. She wanted to leave after a few seconds. Every new animal we saw, she would look for a few seconds and then say, "Should we see another one?" Needless to say, we made it through the zoo pretty fast.

We rode the carousel, Dad and Kayla together and Mom and Ricky together.

Kayla got sick of us asking her to pose for pictures as you can see.

The kids loved the train ride the best.

First Post

Hey everyone! I'm so new to this blogging thing that I'm a bit nervous about this. I put both mine and Rick's name on here because I'm hoping he will get proactive and post somedays. We'll see how that goes.

Just to catch anyone up who is interested...

Rick and I met just over 8 years ago in Las Vegas, NV, where we both worked for Wells Fargo Bank. We were friends for a year, then dated for a year, then got married on January 11, 2003. We lived in Las Vegas until February 2005, when we moved back to Salt Lake City, Utah. In December of 2005, we had our first child, Kayla. In April 2007, we moved to Milford, Utah, a small town in the southern part of the state. Rick was offered a position with Wells Fargo Bank as a store manager. He has done fantastic in this position and has impressed his managers with his hard work and determination. He is well known all throughout town, while I am mostly known as "Rick, the bank manager's wife." I don't mind though because I am very proud of him. I am waiting for the day that I become "Kayla's Mom."

In May 2008 we had our second child, Ricky. So now we have one of each and feel very blessed.

Kayla is 3 and a half now. She is preparing to go to preschool this fall. I'm having a hard time being ready for that. She is learning more Spanish all the time and can now count to 6 in Spanish. She is resisting learning the alphabet in Spanish though, not really sure why. She can sing the ABC song really well.

Ricky just turned 1 last month. He started walking at about 10 1/2 months old and can practically run now. He loves to climb on anything that he can reach which has led us to rearranged some of our furniture to avoid broken limbs. He has recently learned to clap and say "AAayyy!" He also says "Bweeee" on the swings at the park.

Rick became a volunteer firefighter a few months ago and he loves it. He recently took and passed his tests to be a Firefighter 2. He has been on a few fires, small wildfires mostly, and he gets really excited when it happens. I get really nervous, but he works with some good people and he is careful so I try not to panic too much.

As for me, I am just enjoying my life as mom and wife. I have recently started running. Well, trying to run. Since I've never really ran at all in my life I'm not so great yet. I keep trying though and slowly I'm finding that I can go just a little bit farther. I want to train for and run a 5k this year. Even if I puke doing it!