Dress up- arent they cute?

New Cousin

This last week Ava and Cam got a new cousin- Lincoln James Shumaker! We went to the hospital to visit. Lincoln is soooooo cute!

Yay!

This last little while both Ava and Cameron have had some big accomplishments. Ava is now potty trained (Yay! Let me tell you how easy that was NOT), and Cameron has started walking (and he is too cute).

bows

One evening I spent some time at Alisas house. We made a bunch of bows for our girls. When we got home, ava and I started playing and put almost all of them in her hair- more than 30! Her head was so covered, it almost looked like a flower cap!

Okay Okay

I know that I am helplessly behind, so here are some pictures to get you caught up! Because we dont have a bath tub, and because they love baths, I decided to give them one- in the sink.

Surgery

Since this blog is about the whole family, and not just my kids, I've decided to share the most exciting thing thats going on with me. I have decided to get a breast reduction by next summer! I am sooooo excited about it and I wish it could happen tomorrow. Unfortunately my insurance wont cover it and the surgery is roughly about $6,000. The good (and bad) news is that I have about 6 months to save the money (thats $1,000 every month)!
I am planning on making cakes, babysitting, selling nursing covers and other baby items, refinishing older pieces of furniture and selling those, selling my wedding dress :-( , basically anything I can do to earn the money! I am giving up scrapbooking, eating out, getting my hair done, new clothes- eveything I can reasonably give up in order save for it. We'll see how it goes.... So I will be keeping a tracker on the right side of the page showing the money I have saved. Wish me luck!

Sabras party

Isnt Alana to-die-for-cute?

Typical Royce!

Right before my family left, my uncle Mark threw a surprise party for Sabra with dinner, a DJ, blow-up toys, an ice-cream bar, and of course....pony rides! Ava was in seventh heaven...

Daddys and their girls

We are lucky enough to have a small park right down the street. Ava and I spend lots of time there every day. Here are a few pictures from last month when my family was in town- ava and alana spending time with their dads.

Birthday disaster

Incase anyone is wondering what Stephanie (Anderson's) birthday cake looked like BEFORE it fell over in my car on the way to the party-I put a pic up on my cake page. There is a link my
under "my cake page" on the right.

YAY Cameron!!

Well, true to Avas timeline- Cameron turned 6 months old last Saturday, and started crawling on tuesday. Hes such a big boy, I love him to death! Now he is REALLY getting into everything. He will pull himself up on anything he can find- the sofa, a chair, a dresser drawer, car seat, laundry basket- anything! And everything he can find goes straight into the mouth. This week I have taken grass, dirt, rocks, twigs, paper, cardboard, avas hair thing, lego, crayon, and more out of his mouth. It doesnt seem to matter what it tastes like- it all goes in!

Cake Cake Cake

With Billy gone all day (leaves before we get up and gets home between 7:30 and 9:30 every night) I find myself very very very BORED. So i am comming up with projects to keep myself busy (and to keep myself from just going shopping and spending money). Soooo..... I have decided to start making cakes! Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, any special occasion. My prices will be VERY competative as i get started. So if you know of anyone who needs a cake and wants to save money- have them give me a call! I think they taste pretty good too. Here are some pictures of cakes I've done already- Ill get better and more pictures later.

Happy Birthday Ava

We got a chance on Sunday to celebrate avas birthday. She got a cute card and some money from grandma Shumaker, a jewelry box from daddy, and a bike from both Billy and me- it was a great birthday! I cant believe my little girl is 2 already! If she leaves the house at age 18, we've already spent 11% of our time with her....

Repentance

I've been called to repentance on multiple counts- not only were billy and I asked to speak about it in sacrament meeting two weeks ago, but everyone has been ever-so-gently reminding me that " YOU NEED TO UPDATE YOUR BLOG." So this is me repenting and seeking forgiveness.

Unfortunately, I dont have pictures of Hawaii (my camera wasnt working), but I promise to get those up as soon as i get them!

So our summer has been wonderful. We all LOVED hawaii and the beach, but we were still ready to come home. Stephanie got engaged while we were out there so I've kept myself busy by doing home projects, going to the pool, and helping plan her wedding (so much fun!) and other than a terrible mistake i made with the invitations, everything is going okay and almost on budget.

Billy is enjoying his time off. This is his last full week he has off before he has to start with meetings. I am very nervous about being home with both of the kids all day with him at work and then at school (yep, he is finally starting his graduate work).

Ava is, well...Ava. Busy and into everything. She is becoming more independant and I get to hear "I do it!" several times a day. We really need to potty train her, i think she is ready and so is our budget (last week we bought a pack of diapers for each of them and spent $80 at one time). Along with her independance comes some perks too- she actually put herself down for her nap today which is why I can type this up right now!

Cameron is doing well. He is getting sooo big, but still short! I guess that just makes him stout. He is becoming a little less content and wants to be sitting up or held all the time. But he still smiles easily and is so much fun to hold- if i could just get him to sleep through the night!

Anyway, there is a short update. I will try to add pictures soon (ones from hawaii especially). We've got a lot of things comming up in the next few weeks- billy going back to work, avas birthday, moms comming out, stephanies wedding, education week, etc, so I will try to be better about posting. LOVE YA'LL!

Ava and make-up!

Today Ava thought it would be fun to get into mommys make-up and this was the result. Kind of scary, hu? It was pretty funny. Needless to say, I will have to go buy some new make-up....

Too Cute

I had Cam sitting up in the corner of the couch earlier today while I went and did my own thing. I heard him fussing, ignored it, and then checked on him about 5 minutes later. This is what I found-poor baby! But it was so funny, I had to take pictures. Yes, I promise I moved him into a more comfortable position as soon as the pictures were taken.

"MOMMY, I WANT MORE"

A milestone for Ava- she finally said her first full sentence this week. What was so important for her to put together a whole sentence for? Why, an otter-pop of course (it was, after all, the first thing she ever had besides breast milk- thanks steph). Now she just keeps talking and I can tell that she is trying to string more sentences together but it just sounds like this: ahhnuuu aba numm aeww" or something. I guess we need to work on pronunciation a little ;-)

Ava and Cosmo

So Ava LOVES animals, especially dogs, and cosmo is the best! Her are some pictures i took of them playing together today.

New van!

Okay, so we just bought a van. It is the same as grandmas (2002, Honda Odyssey) and we love it! Leather, heated seats, power doors, windows, and best of all- a video system! Now I just have to sell our Ford...blah