So much to love at 2 years, 11 months

1. I love your ideas. You teach me so much every single day about thinking outside of the box and simplifying otherwise trivial problems.

2. I love your breath. When we are snuggled up together and you are whispering to me, I love the way your breath feels in my face.

3. I love listening to you play pretend. In the bath you like to line all of your animals and friends up and play. You have recently begun to request that I not watch and you'll whisper to them as you play.

4. I love that you are starting to really sing. You love listening to Jewel's rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and sing along in a high pitched voice and hold notes longer like she does.

5. I love when you recognize that the same songs are different. Whether they are sung by a male or female, or in a different pitch, or a few words are different you'll declare, "This one is different than _______". You are so smart!

6. I love your backseat driving. You'll tell me to turn this way or that. Or that we usually go a different way and ask why we aren't go this way or that. Your observations of the world around you continue to amaze me.

7. I love your preference to pick out your own clothes and more importantly, your shoes. Some days it's hit or miss as to what clothes you care to wear, but you almost always have an opinion on what shoes to wear. Mostly you are favoring your "between toe" (Thanks Abs!) shoes with socks (as it IS winter time). It's all about compromise.

8. I love reflecting on our days and laughing about which battles I chose or didn't choose with you. Moms of toddlers and I'm sure well beyond the toddler years, know what I mean when we have to pick our battles. I love picturing you in my head wearing two different shoes, on the wrong feet nonetheless, a mismatched headband, and a skirt over some pants. It's harmless to let you have a say in what you want to wear and I've learned that is sure saves me a lot of energy. Oiy!

9. I love how helpful you want to be. You are my little grocery store helper, car helper, food helper, you name it. With one exception, we are still working on cleaning up, but you're getting it.

10. I love our dance parties. You just love to dance and twirl and kick and jump to the music. It's so refreshing when you ask me to join you, for example, while you are dancing when I'm making dinner and I just drop everything and dance for 10 minutes straight. It's like you know that both of us NEED it! Let's get those energies out!

She seriously cracks me up!

Big Girl Haircut

Mommy woke up with the urge for change. We already have A LOT of changes going on in our life, but I had an urge to get Ava's hair cut......CHOPPED! Her gorgeous locks are just so baby-fine and stringy. I was a little nostalgic about it while she was getting it cut, probably because it took us so long to actually get hair and here I was watching those little waves fall to the floor. But it was time for a change.

Besides.

Ava is about to be THREE! She needed a new sassy look to match the sassy attitude that is accompanied by turning THREE! She was more than willing to get it cut and said she wanted it like cousin Abby's hair. Everything these days seems to be about Abs, naturally, as she is a whole year older and wiser....so Ava looks up to everything she does or has.

It's amazing how much thicker it looks and how flippin' CUTE it is! We had to go show daddy afterwards at work because Ava was so proud.

What BIG GIRL HAIR!

Hey, I'll take it!

Ava has become more interested and open about talking about her baby brother. She talks about what she wants to share with him, how she is going to help him and sleep with him. We are truly excited about this!
However, it seems as if she is already starting to want all of his things. We don't have much, but Grandma sent us a package containing new clothes for baby boy, with a Big Sis set of jammies I might add, and Ava just had to put on something on of his......er, size 0-3 months....and sleep in it that night. And the next. And a bib to school the next. She packed away all the clothes in her drawers so as to "help".

Hmmm......she is already SUCH a BIG sister (insert eye roll).

Artsy Ava

Aves isn't "obsessed" with many things. If she has any obsessions or interests right now, it would have to be princesses and drawing/painting. So many days I'll just give her a pen or marker and paper and let her go to town. It's only later that I'm cleaning up that I stop and look and see what AWESOME work she has done! She'll sometimes stop and call me over to see something, but now that she has faces down, she doesn't think they are any big deal. When I look at them, however, they make me so happy to see.

As I was looking through my pictures, I noticed how many faces I've had to take pictures of because they are just so darn cute. She's adding details like hair, ears, eyebrows, etc.

But first, her she is in her element....painting....which almost always turns into body painting!

Love this one!

"Snowman Spider" according to Ava

The Cindy Cat Fortress

"Cindy" (i.e. Cinderella) and I built a fort the other day as an activity to avoid this COLD weather. She not only was a princess, but turned into a kitty cat. She loves pretending!

My Valentine

We had such a lovely Valentine's Day. It started with waking up to cards and treats. After Ava woke up a little bit and got the GP's (grump-o-potamus) out she was thrilled to share the love with our little family. We gathered on the rug to say how much we love each other and share our treats. She made us a heart-shaped pendant and magnet, we ate chocolate hearts and she opened a new hairbrush, mirror and nail polish. When we were all done, she said let's all give a family hug!

Then we made reddish pinkish pancakes and pink eggs that turned out orange. They were still good all the same.

Ava decorated some more "arts and crafts" and made us Valentine's, as well as some for family and friends.

We LOVE Valentine's Day!

Experiments and Sharks

I've said before how much we love our Highlights High Five magazine subscription that Grandma sent us. It has everything from short fictional narratives (Tex and Indi being Ava's favorite) to nonfiction articles to silly pictures to recipes to games to experiments.

When we read about things we can do at home, Ava is always always ready to try them. One day we read about Dancing Raisins. What? Dancing Raisins? We HAD to see what this was about. We combined a glass of water, some vinegar and some baking soda; added the raisins and within a minute or so they were bouncing up and down from the carbonation. We all thought it was so funny!

I wasn't quick enough to capture them bouncing up and down though.
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Another love for Ava is drawing. She'll create her masterpiece and then decide what it is. Like she doesn't set out to draw something, instead she draws and then realizes what it looks like (with the exception of people and faces, she knows what she is doing). However, the other day she drew this! I was so shocked! She was so excited and said, "Look mom! I drew some sharks!"

No Daddy does it BETTER!

You and Daddy are the best pretend play buddies EVER!

Playtime

I just love when I remember to capture her focus during playtime. I could eat her up and just watch her all. day. long.

Playdough (and non-playdough for that matter) tea parties are a big playtime hit for us right now. Oh the things she can think! Mommy wanted to be in shot for once, so we used the timer.

Eating her real snacks from the tea party.

My Little Kitchen Helper

If Ava isn't playing, dressing up or dancing, you will most likely find her in the kitchen. She just loves to help, stir, cut, experiment...you name it. Thank goodness for The Kitchen Helper piece, she just has to see what is going on at all times while in it. Each evening when she hears me beginning to prepare dinner, she races over, "Can I help?" I love it!

The other morning while we were lounging around in bed on a rainy Saturday, she saw a Fresh Beat Band smoothie idea on tv and said, "Let's do that!" So we went to the fridge and gathered what fresh fruits (and veggie-spinach-that mommy snuck in), yogurt, and oj that we had and made a smoothie. Daddy printed out the Fresh Beat Band straw toppers for us and it was a hit! Also, we were just about able to get every color of the rainbow in the smoothie....so cool!

Another kitchen favorite is splashing around in the sink, making "sweet tea" and just experimenting. A tasty snack seemed to be the perfect addition!

Speaking of experimenting, we still love conducting experiments. It's actually a favorite word of Ava's when she wants to pour, mix and add things to different concoctions. I've found her in the bathroom "experimenting" several times. Once she added toilet paper and water to a bottle and shook it up, she was so proud of that experiment. Another time she was making "Chocolate" (think spanish word, that's how she says it) with paint colors from her brushes and another time she added water to grapes and put them out on the front porch....her prediction, it was going to grow for the birds. We'll have to check on that one next week and figure out how to really make something grow.

She was a HUGE helper at Christmastime stirring all the reindeer food we made for our friends. We LOVE kitchen time!