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!

First Ear Infections

I meant to document this awhile ago...

Over Christmas break, Ava was sick w/ a virus, cold-like, that lingered on and on for about 2 weeks. She just couldn't rebound from it. It seemed like every child we knew was sick with this virus as well. We had her ears checked before we headed out of town for the holiday weekend and they were clear.

About a week after we came home, she was still stuffy and congested, but no fever. As we were driving home from the mall one afternoon, she said, "My ear hurts from the doctor looking in it." Well, I knew that was over a week ago and it wasn't from the pedi looking in them. Once we got home, she was so not herself; whiny, crying, not letting me put her down....for THREE hours. I had tried to get her into the pedi but it was late afternoon and they couldn't see her until early the next morning.

She finally fell asleep at about 5:00 for an hour or so and woke up in a complete 180! Back to her normal self. I took her in the next morning and noticed an orangish/reddish crust in her ear. Her pedi concluded that her she had an ear infection and that her little eardrum perforated, or ruptured. Poor thing! She was miserable! I know adults that have had it happen and say how painful it is...I can only imagine for her little 2 and 3/4 body how bad it was.

So she took a 10-day supply of her first antibiotic and all was better. Until....

She became congested again last week! I'm now hyper-sensitive to this snottiness and congestion for fear of not just an ear infection, but a perforated ear drum. So I noticed her touching her ears and she won't be straight with me if they hurt because she hates, hates, hates for the doctor to look in them. It's like notes of kicking and screaming and restraining are on her record....it's that bad.

So I took her in again. The first time, a dr. new to us said all was good. However, the next morning I noticed a crust coming out and her eyes a little goopy. They fit me in the next day, end of day, with the nurse practitioner. She was so thorough and finally used a machine to detect fluid behind her ear drum, confirming an ear infection. It hasn't ruptured this time and she is on her 2nd antibiotic.

My poor little girl has had a rough first month of 2010. Let's hope it gets better from here!

So much to love at 2 years, 10 months

1. I love that you are coming around to having a baby brother. Every once in awhile you'll say something like, "I'll share this with my baby brother when he is here." Or the other day at school, your teachers told me that you said over and over again, "My mommy has a baby boy in her tummy." Yay! The first step is to admit it, right?

2. I love when you put on performances for daddy and me. You'll arrange us on the couch and dance and sing until we clap. And when we do clap, you'll contend that your not done yet keep going and going.

3. I love your problem solving skills. You come up with the most clever ideas when you're stuck in a rut. The other day at the park, you joined a little girl in her quest to dig a hole in the sand. Pretty soon, you grew tired of digging and wanted to jump in the hole. The little girl was upset by this and told you not to get in her hole (can you blame her?). What did you do? You said, "I'll just dig my own hole and jump in." Well played.

4. I love sitting back and watching you make new friends at places like the park. Your social skills are getting up there and you are starting to venture out on your own without needing me to speak for you. SUCH a little girl!

5. I love your smarts! The other day we were listening to a CD with stories and songs on it. It was new and I wasn't sure what was on it. After hearing a story you asked what story was next? I said, "I'm not sure. I don't know if there are any other stories, we just heard one." You immediately replied, "There are more! It said to listen to the storIES, not story!" Sure enough there were more. You were so smart to listen to the narrator at the beginning of the CD and hear him say enjoy the songs and storIES (plural).

6. I love when you make accidental shapes out of something, like a cracker and excitedly tell me what they look like. You've been doing this for awhile now, something is triggered in your creative spirit.

7. I love when you just randomly call "Mommy?" or "Daddy?" and say "I love you."

8. I love snuggling you at night before bed. You love to have your books read, stories told, and a back rub. Oh, and a little lullaby helps too.

9. I love your curiousness. Everything is "I wonder" or "What's that?" or "Why?" Naturally at this age, you have a yearning to learn more.

10. I love your applications. What I mean is if you've read a book and another book reminds you of that one, how you can apply the same basic premise across those books. Moreover, when you use real-world applications and associate it with a text or experience, I melt. For example, you love the story Strega Nona and her endless supply of pasta. When we had more pasta than we knew what to do with the other night, you realized that was just like Strega Nona. And then we heard a story of the Popcorn Girl who couldn't make the popcorn stop and you said, "Just like Strega Nona!" It's just the beginning of early literacy and you don't even know it. You are just being smart little you.

Birthday Season

We are so lucky to get to experience a wide array of adventures for our friends' birthday parties! And, it's only just begun. Winter and Spring are exciting and busy times for us because we get to wish a lot of Ava's friends Happy Birthday!

We splashed and laughed at a swim party at Emler Swim School!

We jumped and ran at Pump It Up bounce arena!

We sang and celebrated Mommy's birthday at home with a YUMMY ice cream cake!

We got painted and tattooed at an Ariel birthday party!

We don't have pics from cousin Abigail's bowling bash, but we rolled and ran around at the Main Event for her celebration.

Can you believe that we have many more birthday parties to look forward to? Aves is one lucky little girl to have such caring and considerate friends to ask her to take part in their special day. I take pictures at most of the birthday bashes and never get around to posting them, so I wanted to show Ava how special she and her friends are.

Goodbye to our fun,furry friend

We received some sad, sad news a few mornings ago. Our beloved stray kitty and fun, furry friend, CJ, is no longer with us. I won't go into details since it's Ava's blog, but we were told by our dear neighbor who knew we had "adopted" her. We are very thankful to have such caring neighbors who thought about Ava first. So, so grateful.

Captain Jack had lingered in our neighborhood for almost 10 months or so. No one knew where she came from, but she was so friendly and outgoing, that we couldn't believe she was a stray. After a few months passed, it was evident that Ava started forming a bond with her. So we got her spayed, got some shots, and fed her daily. She would sleep in our laundry room on the cold nights and come in our house whenever we opened the door. She was the sweetest, cutest, prettiest kitty EVER and we really miss her.

Every morning and each time we pull into our house, Ava still asks about her. We talk about the fun times we had with her and how much we miss her. We are happy that she went to go live with her mommy cat though.

We love you, CJ!

Ryan! She's NOT in her BED!

A few weeks ago I went in to check on Ava before calling it a night myself. A slowly and very quietly opened her door and peeked into her bed to watch her peacefully sleeping. I couldn't see at first, so I turned on her nightlight turtle.

Hmmm, she wasn't in her bed. Don't freak out, she's probably on the floor somewhere.

Looking, looking. Don't freak out. She's probably in her chair.

Okay, when do I panic? Thoughts of kidnapped children who have reportedly "not been in their beds" when parents check on them crossing my mind.

I run into Ryan in half-panic-mode, "She's not in her bed. Her room". "What?" "How?"

We look in the guest bedroom. No dice.

Okay, our home isn't that big. She's got to be here somewhere.

Go in the laundry room.

There. Laying on the floor after having done some laundry it appears, is my little angel. Asleep. How she snuck out, I don't know. But she was safe and sound.

This was a turning point because she has now decided that she wants to sleep in a BIG bed and accommodates herself in our queen size guest bedroom every night.

What a scare that was Aves!

I know we will laugh about this someday....

Yesterday we found out that Ava will have a BABY BROTHER!!!! Mommy and Daddy were beyond excited, almost shocked, to see the "boy stuff", as the ultrasound tech named it. I just knew, along with everyone else it seems, that it was going to be a boy. Seeing him moving away in there was just as amazing as it was with Ava. Just about the only person who thought it was going to be a girl was Ava. And when I say *thought*, it was more like she demanded that it was a girl.

We have tried to prepare her for the baby to possibly be a boy, but she'd have none of it. "No, it's a girl" or "I'm going to have a sister".

So last night when we showed her a video of the baby's sonogram and broke the news to her that it was a boy, we were not surprised at her dismay. However, we were a bit shocked at how strongly she reacted to the news. I mean, so much so that she cried for 10 minutes about how she wants a girl. Like REAL tears.

After watching the video about 50 times it seems, I am starting to be able to laugh at it, but I still get a lump in my throat. You see, I was doing the filming and bawling behind the camera at her reaction, but I had to hide my face, so I couldn't comfort her. Daddy did an excellent job of trying to help soothe her. We both were speechless at first because we didn't know how to handle her reaction. Our reactions and impromptu speeches are a bit comical however.

I know she will love and adore her baby brother, so I'm not worried. A little boy will be a perfect addition to our family. I think my emotions were based on seeing her disappointment and the guilt I have, that every mother of more than one child has, of preparing to turn her world upside down with a new baby.

So here is the video of how we told Ava she was having a baby brother....

Umm...princess much?

Ava had been eyeing the princess dress-up outfits leading up to the holiday season, whether in magazines or stores. She had a few dress-up things prior to THE Disney Princess collection, but the obsession was nothing like it is now. After an unfortunate biting incident (she being the inflicter) at her cousin's house in demand for a certain dress, it was time that we widened her princess dress-up collection.

Mommy and daddy bought Aves a chest of 4 princess outfits for Christmas: Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella, though she hasn't technically seen any of the movies. She hasn't taken them off since!

Oh Aves, you wear them to bed, to school, to play, to dance, to run errands, etc. I have to say, it is rather cute and since we've agreed that clothes have to be put on underneath, it isn't worrisome. It's just that this girly-girl came out of left field. Yesterday you asked me to paint your fingernails and toenails! So fun.....as long as you continue to kick a soccer ball while wearing princess heals, I'll be fine with it. Stay well-rounded my dear. Drinking our sparkling grape juice on New Year's Eve.
Giving her best fake smile while being snow white.
Beautiful Cinderella.
An ensemble that could only be created by you.

Oh! And it has been made perfectly clear that while she does look beautiful, each princess also has a meaningful quality/characteristic whether it be creative, smart, hard-working or kind, daddy and I brainstormed those after we found that was all that was being said to her when she'd wear the outfits..."You look BEAUTIFUL! But did you know that Ariel was very creative and smart. You are so creative and smart too!". LOL, I take this stuff WAY too seriously.

Christmas 2009

What a magical Christmas it was this year! Ava really understood what was going on and got a dose of the "Christmas Spirit" with Santa coming, leaving out cookies and awaking to a roomfull of presents.

We did a trial run on Christmas Eve morning with a big present from Grandma. When she woke up, we told her that she got to open a present early from Grandma. When she came out to the living room, still half asleep, she said "my dollhouse!" and ran to it. Since this was one of the things that she had asked Santa for, she was a little confused that it was from Grandma, as she declared, "No, it's from Santa" very matter-of-factly. Grandma said she can't compete with Santa on that one. Nevertheless, after we turned off the video camera, Ava gasped, "We forgot to say THANK YOU." So, eventhough I haven't uploaded the video, THANK YOU Grandma!


Then we drove Christmas Eve day up to Dallas (a day early) because, more than anything, we all needed a change of scenery. Ava had been sick and we were pretty much home-bound w/ all the shopping and last-minute crowds that were out. It was neat to surprise Gigi and Poppy also.

Christmas morning was such a special time. Ava was excited to open all her presents and see what Santa left for her. Of course, it was a little difficult to explain how to stop and savor each present and not move on to the next so quickly. But it typical 2 and 3/4 fashion, that's pretty much what happened. Besides, what is one to do with three rubber duckies out in the living room? Needless to say, she requested to go take a bath shortly after present time.

Opening her Cinderella bath toy.

The new shopping cart and food that Gigi and Poppy got her. Yes, we've already been to the grocery store with it as she told me that "Gigi said I could take it." Thanks Gigi. No seriously, this is such a nice and sturdy (i.e. HEAVY) grocery cart and we are very thankful.

I would have to say that the theme for this Christmas was "princess". She got princess dress-up, dolls, jewelry, etc. Not a day has gone by on this, January 4th, 10 days after Christmas that she hasn't put on a princess get-up of some sort for her everyday attire. Pics soon to come.

What a wonderful Christmas we had and we are so thankful for all the friends and family we have in our lives.