Such a Big Girl

Creating Our Own Ocean

Since Aves and I have been doing a little reading on oceans, I found this craft to make so that we can have our own little ocean. It was so simple and a total learning opportunity from start to finish. We added some seashells that we had and that turned into a sink/float experiment (I thought they all sank, but nope). Then we added blue coloring, vegetable oil and glitter and shook it up. We got to see how water and oil separate too (though that wasn't the most interesting thing for Aves). She enjoyed helping create the ocean more than anything.

Wordless Wednesday: Cowgirl Fairy

Salt Water Experiment

We've been talking and reading about oceans lately in anticipation for an upcoming trip to the beach with Grandma. One experiment that we did was talk about the difference between salt water and fresh water. Since I like to show, we conducted a little taste test.

Here is Ava very slowly taking a drink of salt water.

Her reaction. Gag!

Now taking a sip a fresh water.

After she digested (no pun intended) this new information, she thought the experiment was really funny. We now have a little joke when she asks for water, I'll ask if she wants salt or fresh water. And she says, "Moooooommy, fresh water!".

:.:.:HaPpy HaLLoWEen!:.:.:

Happy Halloween 2009!

Wow, this year was SO MUCH FUN! Ava really got into the whole trick or treating scene and was just so giddy with excitement. It filled me up with so much joy just to see her so happy. We started off the night with some great friends, the Sterns, and went ToTing with their awesome neighbors. Cute toddlers were EVERYWHERE!

Then we went back to our neighborhood to do some more ToTing and attend the Christian's Halloween get-together. I wish I had pictures of how AWESOME they decorated their house, but I forgot all pictures while we were there, so I'll just have to leave it at how SPOOK-tacular it was.

Here is Ava so happy to show our Jack-o-lantern. She was so not into pulling out the pulp and guts but enjoyed directing me on what shape the eyes, nose and mouth should be.

Getting into the ToTing with Mimi.

Aves and Mimi. The whole "Cat-in-caboodle" telling me to stop taking pictures. After we left (round 1) of Trick-or-Treating, she was on cloud 9! She kept saying, "I'm having SO much FUN!"

The family of animals. Mommy was a mouse, Ava a cat, and Daddy was a doggy.

Pfamily Pfun Pfestival

A few weeks ago we went to Ava's School's Pfamily Pfun Pfestival (in Pflugerville) and she had an absolute blast! She went "fishing" for prizes, did a cake walk, choose a lollipop from a lollipop tree, got a tattoo, got her face painted (her favorite-she loved the attention she received from it), cracked a confetti egg, and of course, picked out pumpkins.

It was fun for mommy too because she got to see some of her former students and her long-term leave maternity sub.

Here are a few pics from our fun family day!

Painting Ghostly Squash

This was another one of those perfect days that Ava and I had. We spent the day doing Halloween "stuff", decorating, cooking pumpkin bread, painting butternut squash pumpkins and eating lots of "special treats" that we couldn't resist picking up at the grocery store. The weather was "boo-tiful" and it was just such a happy day.

See our ghosts down on the porch? Thanks for the idea Cindy!
Oh, and Avas face is painting from a festival we went to that weekend. I'll post pics from that soon.

Oh Fiddlesticks!

I HAVE to write about Ava's "Rock Star" shirt pictured in a few posts I've written. Some dear friends of ours have started a business, Oh-Fiddlesticks!, designing and making these ADORABLE and UNIQUE shirts.

Like I said....ADORABLE, right? It's the unique element that has me in LOVE with them. They are so creative and come up w/ compound words that are hand-drawn and created to fashionably represent the cute "code" or word.

Everytime Ava wears her "Rock Star" shirt she always get compliments, so I just have to brag about Oh Fiddlesticks on here as well. Speaking of compliments, when Keri and I handed the shirts out as swag at the Boom Boom Room, they got OODLES of compliments from the celebs there!

One last series of pictures to show how appropriate Ava's "Rock Star" shirt is, as she set up an elaborate drum set to play. I had to sneak and take these pictures before I lost the essence of the true rock star playing her heart out.

Aspirations

"I want to learn how to dance." -Ava

"I want to learn how to sing." -Ava

"I'm going to learn how when I get big." -Ava

The Little Mermaid

A few weeks ago we went to The Scottish Rite Children's Theatre to see their production of The Little Mermaid. Ava is really into mermaids lately, so much so that was one of her choices for a Halloween costume-but it didn't make her final cut, so this was VERY appropriate.


What a cute play it was! She watched the entire show just mezmorized. We will definitely keep our eye out for future plays at the Scottish Rite Children's Theatre.

Watching very intently.

Wordless Wednesday: Slicing Bananas

Hello, Cupcake!

We attempted to get creative and make cupcakes. Our inspiration drew from a yummy package Grandma sent us filled with tons, TONS of candy and treats made especially for decorating cupcakes using the book Hello, Cupcake!

The pumpkins looked like a great "starter" decorating experiment. After we made them, all was easy peasy....icing, rolling in sugar, putting in the stems (Ava's favorite part) up until doing the piping of the lines on the pumpkin. It took me about 10 minutes to do just this one and we decided that they looked cute enough w/out the lines.

See?

Okay, so maybe her favorite, favorite part was eating them. See?

2 1/2 Year stats and stuff

The Stats:

I forgot to update her stats from her 2.5 year well visit in Sept.

Height: 35 inches
Weight: 28 lbs. 3 oz.

Meeting and exceeding all her milestones and just doing fantastic overall! We couldn't be happier with our healthy little girl!

The Stuff:

When Ava woke up the other day we were just laying around in her room reading books and talking. She then decided it was time to go see daddy in our room.

As I followed behind her into our room, I told her that Daddy already went to work and she opened the door and said,

::sniff, sniff:: "Then why does it still smell like daddy?"
After daddy showers and gets ready, we can smell his cologne and we love it!

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The other night when we were doing our night-night routine, Ava puts her arms around each of our necks and says,

"My mommy. My daddy. My angels."

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Another one, the other night I was scratching Ava's back before night-night and she says, "That tickles."

I say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just rub."

She says, "It's okay, you don't need to say I'm sorry."

School Update

School is going GREAT now! We had a rough few weeks with drop-off, but on the third Thursday, something just clicked, and Ava just turned to give me a kiss and said "good-bye, mommy". I was elated!

If it weren't for the director and the other teachers in the office for calling me and telling me she was fine about 1 minute (sometimes less) after I left, then I don't know what I would do. They were so nurturing and caring. Mrs. Robin even took a picture of Ava right after I left one day just to show me how much fun she was having playing with shaving cream. It's so Aves!

Some other school news....

They have been learning about "Fall"; apples, pumpkins, leaves, etc and Ava tells me something new everyday. She loved making "leaf toast" the other day. They made all things apple and sampled some of each. They tried applesauce, fresh apples, apple juice and apple cider. On her sheet, it noted that Ava said "Apple Cider" is her favorite.

Next week they will be going to the pumpkin patch at school at she is of course looking forward to that.

Some funny conversations Ava has had with her teachers:

Mrs. Lauren: "It's a sunny day today"

Ava: "Actually, there are some clouds in the sky"

This one was told to me by a friend, Andi, who was touring the school that day and saw Ava on the playground.

Teachers: "What are those bumps on your legs?"

Ava: "They are ant spider bites" Um, no, they were actually mosquito bites, not that those are any better.

Mrs. Lauren: Discussing different foods and what is healthy vs. unhealthy food. They made a plate with cut-out food from a magazine.

Ava: "My mom gives me a healthy lunch everyday".

Duck Pond Days

One of our favorite destinations in our outing rotation is the duck pond.