Vegetables

Ava: "Mommy, if we eat lots of vegetables, will we never die?"

Mommy: "Well vegetables are really good for our bodies, but they can't keep us from dying. Everyone dies."

Ava: "I'm going to try to eat as much as I can and maybe I'll live forever. I want our whole family to live forever."

Mommy: "Doesn't hurt to try. I want our whole family to live forever, too."

Summer Swimming!

Front Yard Picnic

Griffin at 2 years, 2 months

He is a talking machine!

Some of my favorite phrases:
"Me do it SELF!" - Oh my, he is definitely gaining his Independence and wants to attempt everything by himself.

"What sissy doin?" -It's what he says first thing when I go get him in the morning. He always has Ava on his mind.

"Nasty Waydee" (nasty lady) -When he refers to Cruella Deville from the 101 Dalmatians Book.

Eating
Griff is a pretty good eater and especially likes "Moo Moos" (smoothies) mixed with various fruits and vegetables. He is much better at using utensils since he does it by himself.

Sleeping
Well, we are at a crossroads right now. To give up nap or not. As I write this, I'm hoping it's a phase, but he's gone 4 days in a row without a nap. He has discovered getting out of his crib, which he's done before but now he has decided that it's overrated to listen to our words about staying in his crib. We put a gate up and that was knocked over and broken in about 2 minutes. Now there is a child-proof lock on his door handle, but as of yesterday, he figured out how to break that off. So it looks like we will be transitioning to a big boy bed soon.

With no naps, bedtime is around 7:00 and he's sleeping until 7:30-8:00 am. That's nice. If only Ava was on the same schedule, but that's not the way it works.

Activities
Griffin really loves the water. He took off his puddle jumper last week at the pool and wanted to jump in to us and "swim" the short distance back to the side of the pool. I think we are going to do a swim school in the fall.

Some Recent Art Pieces

Drawing is so Ava's thing. The radio one on a paper towel cracks me up! When I went over to see what she was drawing, I asked her where she saw a radio like that because we don't have one. She was outside watching the men put together the playscape and noticed their radio. She was intrigued so she came inside and found the first thing she could get her hands on, a paper towel, to draw what she had seen. Ryan and I were stunned at it accuracy and her mental picture of just what it looked like. Bravo, Ava!

New Playscape

We've already gotten our return on this investment. The kids love it outside. Ava would even wake up extra early so that she could spend some time playing on it before school. The novelty has worn off a bit, but they are still out there everyday. It's really starting to heat up, so our playscape play time usually involves water and lots of sunscreen.

More of The Graduate

Preschool Graduation

What a sentimental time this was. We've been here long enough to make friends and create memories, mostly through the Musical Arts Schoolhouse. We've seen some fabulous productions, plays, art exhibits and musical numbers these past two years and preschool graduation didn't disappoint either. Ava's class sang a number of songs, and also did the whole graduation march. They even had a part to memorize as they used the alphabet to describe this year's experience. Ava said, "O is for obstacles that we learn to overcome". Her teacher picked a word that described each of them and started with the letter of their first name. And I introduce to you....... "AWESOME Ava"!

Tiny Dancer

To The BEST Daddy in the Whole World!

Happy Father's Day! We Love you so much! Why? Because well, you're "Gaga" (as Griff calls you) and "You take me to the movies", as Ava said.

Nature Walk

Using a guide we found on Pinterest, we went searching for items that were beautiful, straight, fuzzy, green, seeds, leaves, etc. Ava and Griffin really enjoyed this time together to investigate and collect. We turned our treasures into a nature presentation board for Ava's bed. She decided it would fit well with her treehouse bed.

A Week of Rainbows

We kicked off summer fun with all things Rainbow! From learning about how they appear, to creating our own and from using the primary colors and creating all the colors of the rainbow with water, playdough, fruit and paint. i

Empathy Milestone......CHECK!

When Ava and Griffin found a hurt lizard (aka dead), they tried to make him feel better by giving him a band-aid. Maybe it helped? The next morning he miraculously disappeared!

A Day in the Life-May 2012 at OneTrueMedia.com

Although this was done several weeks (okay, months) ago, it still shows what a day in our life looks like. Of course Ava has now graduated from preschool (::sniff::) but I wanted to capture our daily routine while she was still in pre-K.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

On Being Two

My blogging skills have become lackluster, at best. I am so far behind in updates, but still enjoy capturing day-to-day moments of my two babies. I love documenting their lives and milestones and will continue to update as best I can. Ryan swears it's because we have a little two-year-old running around, never giving us a dull moment. So about that two-year-old, my little boy.... Griffin Davis, you are so special. You have a charm about you that everyone hones in on immediately and you run with it. You are definitely the class clown and love to make others laugh. But you also are such a love and my gentle giant. Gentle is a relative term, in this sense, because while you don't MEAN to run anything and everything over that's in your path, you are a bull in a china shop, and well, you DO run over anything and everything that's in your path. You are just so physical and excited and adventurous and capable. I laugh because when you come to give me hugs or to sit on my lap, it's not pretty. There is usually a head-bonking catastrophe or a busted lip that one of us endures during the process. And what's so awesome about it, about you, is that you mean well and are so very loving. It's just the pure, physical BOY in you. And I never thought I would say that. That you are all boy. Because what does that mean? Boys aren't just football players and steak-eaters (lol, I couldn't come up with anything better!). Boys (and this is generally speaking, probably somewhat stereotypical), and I mean YOU, can be rough and tumble, but boy oh boy (pun intended) can boys be loving and caring by rocking a baby doll, like you do and fancy and sassy by putting on a sparkly necklace, like you do. You are well-rounded and entertaining, sweet and nurturing, handsome and smart. And best of all, you are TWO. We celebrated your birthday at the beach in Galveston with the family. You thought the celebration we had for you at the beach house with your sister, grandma, aunt, uncle and cousins was the best and you were on cloud nine, telling everyone "happy birthday to ME!" We ADORE you, little man and can't wait to be entertained for many, many years to come. You make us all smile just when we need to and just take a moment to enjoy the moment, to really see life for what it is....tough, but FUN! Stats: 35.25 inches (74th%) 29.2 lbs (65th%) 19.2 head cirm (73rd%) Vax: Received 1st DTAP and took it like a champ! Milestones: -Talking is amazing! Griffin is speaking short sentences (I want that, Daddy change dipey, etc.) -So incredibly active; running, jumping, kicking, bouncing, swimming. -LOVES the water! He wanted to go in without any life vest and once we got the Puddle Jumper, everyone can let out a sigh of relief for his safety and well-being. He loves to do it by "self" and just float and kick and swim around. We were just at a friend's boathouse on the lake last weekend and he was jumping off the dock and sliding off the slide from the top tier of the boat. Can you say mommy and cardiac arrest?! -He loves his sissy and thinks and wants to do everything she does. Of course, she takes advantage of this on many occassions to make him the pawn or get him in trouble. Typical older sibling ;) -Brushing his teeth. He is getting much better at this but of course requires some assistance. -His eating is ok. He is starting to eat more variety that is always offered to him, but stays away from a lot of foods of color and not sweet-tasting....vegetables. Slowly but surely we WILL get him to eat his veggies. -He is starting to try to dress himself. He is REALLY good at undressing, but wants to try to pants on his head or shirts on his legs. -He is so sweet that when he hurts someone, he will usually go up to them and say "I sawwy mommy" and mean it. He is a sensitive guy also.