Ava Rose Holman at 7 months old. Kaya is elegantly peering out nude at the window.

Happy Halloween friends and family. We are dressing up as viruses this year, as we are all staying home with a cold. It is not a very exciting year for Halloween but we have each other and are very much in love as a family. It is a good thing as we will be in bed most of the day! It is our fourth wedding anniversary, Andrew and I. I love him so much. He is such a great father to Kaya and Ava and a wonderful husband. I don’t want to write too much as this journal really needs some photos of the girls. It is way overdue for pictures, especially of six month old Ava, who is sitting up!

My mom came to visit last week, an impromptu visit as she had business in New Mexico. It was a nice visit although I think she was our virus culprit!

I am not going back to work, the spa at Enchantment Resort, until the Spring as I couldn’t wean Ava. Also, we are fortunate that Drew has an overabundance of work. I do too but it is in the name of changing diapers, going to the park daily, and feeding infant and toddler. I have dropped even more weight which feels good!

Kaya is hanging out on the deck at the Holman farm in South Dakota.

I hope Kaya and Ava won’t mind that I have hijacked their journal. One day they can read these stories and smile at their goofy and romantic mother.

I didn’t have a chance to write about our trip to South Dakota but now that Drew’s parents, Dean and Vi, have come for a visit to us in Clarkdale, AZ, I must write a tale of two cities and one family.

I always love visiting the Holman family as Dean and Vi are very loving. They have an inspiring marriage, going on forty years this November, their “Ruby” anniversary. Even though they are more conservative in some ways than how I was raised, we get along really well and respect each other’s differences. Andrew (Drew) likes to mention that his parents raised their three boys to be unique individuals, which they are, and they get along well today. I really enjoy Drew’s brothers and I am proud to hang out with them. They are both married to very different types of women. The middle brother, Jon, has two girls. The Holman boys are clever at spitting back girls into the world. We joke with Joe, Drew’s youngest brother, that it is up to him to carry on the family name. Although, it would be sweet if he has two girls, as it would complete the female duo triad.

Anyway, enough storyline this is Kaya and Ava’s website afterall. When we visited South Dakota we had a lot of fun, visiting, and spending quality time with Drew’s grandmother, Dorothy, who is in her late eighties. I am especially close with her, as she reminds me of the nice relationship I had with my own grandmother. The two of us write each other letters and she is quick to understand stories and such, just as she is steadfast in telling them. Andrew and I did a video piece with her asking her about her Norwegian and German ancestors and what life was like growing up on the prairie. We asked her what she wanted to say to our girls when they were older, so as a child of the Great Depression, she replied, “to live conservatively.” At first I thought it was a stale thing to say but in lieu of the recent economic state of America, it was a most ingenious reply and she meant it in a loving way.

I have photos to post of our August visit to South Dakota, of which I will place here. Ava was nearing four months old and Kaya was twenty months.

Kaya at her Grandma Vi’s birthday party

The next image is of Andrew and Jon relaxing in the living room where they were raised.

Ava with her cousins, Abigail and Elizabeth.

Blessed be the little girls, Kaya and Ava. I am so happy I have two beautiful little baby girls. They keep me so busy. I take them on walks every morning and also to the park before lunch. I let Kaya run it out and she uses everything; the slide, the swings, the sandbox, the bridge to somewhere, and the hanging bars.

Ava at almost six months, enjoys watching her sister and I run around on the grass. We have a true green park up here in the mountains of Northern Arizona. The residents built the park at the turn of the century to remind them of the more manicured East Coast.

I still get homesick though, even though I have made some close friends in the mommy world. I have been hanging out almost every day with a gal by the name of Bethany. A beautiful artsy local woman who lived for five years in San Francisco, working at a funky coffee house in Cole Valley. She is actually from our little town here, born and raised, and has three children who range in age between eleven and two months old. Their names our Bailey, Finn, and most recently Elias. Bethany’s husband is also really interesting, he has a culinary background and lived in Porland, Oregon for several years. I also spend my time with her close friend, Amber, who lives up in Jerome with her partner, Dean, and toddler, Matteo, and little baby boy, Juno. She is really mellow and also adorable and progressive. Amber and her Dean live in the old shower stalls of the Jerome miner’s. Her house is really remote and has been transformed into a gem on the cliffs.

My third best mommy buddy is Shana, originally from Connecticut and now lives with her husband, Ilan, from Israel, and their little girl, Ahdivah, in a newer housing development closer to Sedona. I have written about them before. I am so thankful to have these three women in the my life, as they are getting me through an isolating, yet divine, still tiring mommy schedule.

I have lost a good fifteen pounds since giving birth to Ava Rose. I am staying fit by taking the stroller up and down steep sidewalks. It is my miniature San Francisco minus all the cool people and shops.

Speaking of miniature, I lost my miniature Schnauzer, Sophie. Old age got the better of her and she died on 8/8/08. I miss her so much but am happy I got to be with her for fifteen years as she sailed with me during my twenties and thirties, living in such towns as; New Orleans, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Santa Fe, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Sedona, Arizona.

After Ava turned two months old and the weather got blistery hot in Arizona, we flew to cooler ground, to visit the grandparents in Michigan. I am so happy I am from Michigan, especially in the summer. I was still in shock over having two babies to care for and it was nice to have the extra help. We would be in Michigan for the entire month of July, and what a pleasure it was.

Drew had to fly home to Arizona for some professional obligations so he actually made two trips to Michigan, as I couldn’t fly with the kids by myself. It was also nice for him to have a vacation. Two vacations for Drew I should add, one from kids and I, and one to Michigan.

I could write pages and pages about our frolicking in Ann Arbor cafes and hanging out with family by the lake, but I know its all about the images right now! Here are a few cute ones from our trip. The little girls look like angels here. Kaya at times was not an angel, but I am still a sucker for her smile. I am happy to say she is getting easier though, as her language skills improve. I am thankful for both girls though, and am totally in love with our family.

Ava Rose at 3 months old, photo taken on my mom’s linen couch in Ann Arbor.

Kaya on a stroller ride through Huron Metro Park near Dexter.

Kaya searching to throw another rock into Lake St. Clair

We are all at the Mace lake cottage here. Kaya takes her first freshwater swim. My step-mom, Linda, and my father in the photo. Also cousin Maddie helps Kaya along.

My father swings kaya in the hammock.

My mother feeds Kaya pasta at my birthday celebration at the Real Seafood Company in Ann Arbor. We also celebrated my step-dad’s birthday, who turned seventy.

This is me at the birthday dinner. The restaurant had a “sling” for Ava’s carrier so she could be right next to me.

Here is another photo of Ava stretching her arms in the sun.

Here is handsome Daddy Drew hanging out on a swing in my mother’s backyard.

After our trip to Michigan, we flew home to Arizona and left a day later for South Dakota. There are a lot of images from this trip to, which I ask Grandma Vi for.

Ava’s website can be found here: avaholman.com

——————————–

Ava Rose Holman was born at 2:45am Saturday 4/12/08 at 6lbs 13oz.

Both mom and the baby are doing great.

Well, Easter has come and gone and I am ready to give birth to a new baby girl, Ava Rose. She already is weighing over seven pounds in my belly and I have another two weeks of incubation. Kaya is going to get an awakening as I haven’t been able to prepare her for the concept of a baby sister coming into the house. She is just a little too young to reason that there is a baby in my belly. I suppose some children at sixteen months might be able to grapple with this idea but she has yet to care about baby dolls and every time I tell her that my large belly is carrying something she repeats our word game, “belly button.”

Eventually she will feel this new sister is a blessing, as she will have a constant playmate.

Its interesting to have a creature this formed inside me. I am up through the night taking the pressure of my bladder as well as turning from side to side in my sleep. My mom has been here to help me and come to the local park with Kaya. Drew is also always supportive. We are still very much in love. He is a wonderful father to Kaya.

Kaya at sixteen months old. She likes to look out our front picture window to see if she can see any birds.