22 months old

Dear Ava,

Can you believe you are already 22 months old?! Well ok, so maybe you have no clue what I am talking about but I am in shock that you are just two months away from turning 2! That's almost two whole years that you have been on this earth and bringing a smile to my face every single day {even days like recently when you were either sick or cranky!}. You see my sweet girl, no matter what you do or what you say {like "NO!"} I will always love you and be your biggest fan. I find joy in even the littlest moments with you {like holding your hand or watching you splash in the tub} and I know this feeling will never go away because I am your momma. Being a mom to you has brought new purpose to my life and I still have to pinch myself that I am living my dream. FYI, just get to used to my sentimental moments because you will soon realize that they happen a lot!! I can't help it! I want you {and others} to always know how I feel and just how special you are to me. Ok, so I am done for now and here are some things that you have been up to this month...

*Your favorite activities include filling up your little bowls and cups with water in the tub, pushing your baby stroller around the house or yard with your stuffed animal of choice for the day, throwing leaves up in the air for Macy to jump in, coloring with markers {so messy}, and watching Madagascar. You would watch that movie every day if I let you, which you kind of did when you were sick (more on that later).

*Every month your talking gets better and your words become more clear. You have started putting a lot more words together. Your favorites are " Oops, sorry!", "Ok, bye" (mostly used when you are chatting on the phone), "Where go?" (for awhile after we took the Christmas tree down you would walk into the living room every day and ask this), "Want some?", "Mace, come, Mace". You have just recently started saying Macy instead of Mace too. You also say "pooey stinky" when you have a poopoo. I think it is funny! Another thing that you say a lot is "hand" and you reach for my hand and drag me where you want to take me.

*We are working on good manners and saying please, thank you, and sorry.

*You can count past 10 now (or you attempt to at least) but I don't know where the cut off is. I hear "__teen" a lot but I dont think you really know what you are saying. It's cute to see you try!

*Thanks to The Letter Factory DVD you know a few of your letter sounds such as sounds for A, B, C, and I have heard you say the sound for F.

*You know the colors pink and yellow for sure and anytime you don't know a color or get confused your default is "lellow". :)

*This month you discovered how to climb out of your pack-n-play which also means that you could probably climb out of your crib if I let you. You discovered this new trick while we were on Christmas vacation at Papa and Gramielle's and since then you have been sleeping in a sleepsack. I think you are used to it now although I am sure you would sleep even better if you didnt have to wear it. Unfortunately, that's not really an option as you are not ready for a toddler bet yet.

*You had your first major sickness this month. I say "major" but it was just a virus of some kind. It felt major to your daddy and I because until now you have hardly been sick or had a fever. You had a fever (highest around 102.9) off and on for almost 3 days and you felt miserable!!! It was a learning experience for your daddy and I in how to take care of you when you are sick but we just followed our instincts and did what we thought you needed (including putting you in front of the tv as long as you would watch it so you could rest and also sleeping beside your crib when you woke up at all hours of the night). Hopefully next time you get sick Mommy wont be so worried and distraught about it.

*Traveling over the holidays, transitioning to a sleepsack, and then your sickness has thrown your sleeping way off this month. We finally got control of you waking up in the middle of night thanks to the trusty Ferber method (never fails!) but now it would be nice if you could sleep in later than 5:45 or 6 in the morning and take naps longer than an hour! You need it desperately because I have noticed you being a little more cranky and irritable lately. Still love ya though!

I am excited for some new activities to get you involved in soon. Bible study has started back up again, which you love going to, and next week we are going to try out a gymnastics class for you! With this cold weather and being cooped up indoors, you could really use some opportunities to interact with other kids and burn off some of your energy.

I look forward to another exciting two months with you before you turn 2! I love you more than Macy loves squirrels!

Love,

Your momma

Updated Shutterfly Pics

I just added some more pictures that I took over the past week on our Shutterfly site.

The pictures are from my mom and Bri's visit, "Junk Food and Jammies" night with the sisters, aunts, and mom, and a playdate at Amy's while The Burkharts were in town.

Ava update: She got sick on Saturday night and has been feeling bad ever since. She has had a fever off and on for the past 3 days. The dr. says she has a virus of some kind. I hope she feels better soon and she gets some good rest tonight. Last night was a rough one! I hate seeing my little girl sick. I have enjoyed the extra snuggles but am so ready for her to be her happy normal self.

Stay tuned for Ava's 22 months old post coming soon!

New Pics on Shutterfly

I have decided that I am going to try the Shutterfly thing after all. Much less time consuming and everyone can still see pictures. Anytime I update an album on shutterfly I will let you know on the blog and include the link.

The pictures that I uploaded today are from this weekend. The Bass family stayed with us on Saturday night and I got a few pictures of Ava and Izzie playing and of course a few of cute little Andrew. We were so happy that they were here. I feel like anytime I see them it is for such short amount of time, usually just a quick pop in to their house when we are in San Antonio.

After they left on Sunday it snowed!! The first snow of 2011! I got a few pictures of Ava playing in the snow along with some crafts, yes CRAFTS woohoo, that we made together while we were stuck inside all day. I am already planning some future crafts with this little one. She loves it just as much as I do, thank goodness!

Click http://mikeandkristenseamans.shutterfly.com/ to see our shutterfly page with the pictures. I still have lots of gaps to fill in with pictures from the past year but there are other albums that you can view as well that I already had on Shutterfly. Also, don't forget to look below the pictures for captions. I will try and do this as often as I can. You can also leave comments on the right hand side of the homepage or underneath the pictures. It should be easier to leave comments than on the blog. I love to read your comments!

Wordless Wednesday

He is real and merciful

As I am catching up on blogs I follow, I come across a post from a blog that I have read many times before. It is a blog called Life In Grace and is written by a woman named Edie who chronicals her life with her beautiful family, her Christian values and beliefs, and all her home projects that have made her home one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I don't know Edie but tears are flowing down my cheek as I think about the horrible tragedy that has struck her family. It's not just the fact that she lost her home to a fire just days before Christmas but the fact that her entire family escaped completely unharmed. "God doesn't give explanations, He gives promises". Ironically, it's in tragedies like this where I feel the true face of Christ is revealed. I have been reminded from Edie's story that He is real, he is so merciful, and I have so much to be thankful for. Click here to read Edie's eloquently written post about this horrible tragedy. I pray that it brings you hope, gratitude, a renewed since of love for Him, and moves you the way it has moved me.

Click here for a beautiful slideshow of Edie, her family, and her home that was created by one of her friends. Warning....it's a tear jerker!

A blog change perhaps?

After spending way too many naptimes uploading and writing captions for all the Christmas photos I have come up with a solution that I think will be more practical and time efficient but I need your opinion. On Shutterfly you can basically create a website to share all the pictures that you upload. You can even include captions. Since I need to get better at uploading pictures on Shutterfly anyway I think this might be a good time saver move. This way I don't have to upload them twice (to the blog and to Shutterfly). Doing this would allow me to upload more pictures rather than narrowing them down for the blog (although by the last post it seems like I didn't. Promise I did!) and it would also allow the grandparents and other family members to order the pictures if they like. Since I created a book of Ava's 1st year based on all my posts I don't feel the need to make another book from the blog rather I think I might just create a "Family Yearbook" each year from Shutterfly. Uploading all my pics to my own shutterfly website would make this much easier too. The pics will already be there. I love the blog so much and I am sad that I won't be posting as often however I do plan on posting updates on Ava, including her monthly letters. I will make a book out of these but that will be way easier than what I did for her 1st year. So to my blog readers, what are your thoughts? Good idea or will it break your heart for me to not post 100 pics to the blog at a time? ;) I'm actually still debating so I need some input. Here is actually a preview with albums that I already had on Shutterfly.

Christmas Part 4- Gigi and Bpop

The Wednesday before Christmas we made our way to Beaumont, our final destination on our Christmas tour! ;) We had a wonderful time getting into the Christmas spirit with Gigi and Bpop and playing with all the fun things that they had for Ava to play with.

The first night we walked around the neighborhood to look at lights. This has become a favorite Christmas tradition of ours can you tell!?

Ava admiring the trees in Gigi's yard

Kisses for momma

Even Macy got to join in the fun this time!

Like before, we made our self at home in other people's front yards to see the pretty lights

Gigi, Ava, Mikey, and Big Mace

Gigi bought Ava this amazing cardboard house for her to play in. She got it for $10 at one of the craft stores and Ava loved it! You could even color it!

Knock knock, Ava's home!

I wanted to see what all the fun was about

and so did Macy and Daddy. Nice and cozy!

Oops! Ava found these markers but instead of coloring with them she thought they would make good makeup. Pretty green blush!

I had been wanting to get Ava the "Elf on the shelf" after hearing about it from friends and Gigi's neighbor was kind enough to bring over some gifts for Ava and this was one of them!

The sweet neighbor also included an elf skirt so even though the elf looks a little boyish we are saying she is a girl and we named her "Holly". Maybe I can make some kind of brown ponytail hair extension for her.

Holly the elf was busy exploring and always watching to make sure Ava was being a good girl so she could report back to Santa. {Ava spotted her a few times and said "elf" but clearly the adults had more fun with Holly this year}

Another fun thing to do at Gigi's is go up and down the stairs

Great Granpa Hull sent Ava a new Dr. Seuss book

Probably one of her favorite things all week was decorating gingerbread cookies. She had already decorated cookies with her friends so she jumped right in and knew just what to do.

She ate entirely too much icing and sprinkles

but to see that smile on her face I just let her

Macy cleaned her up when she was finished

Mommy and Gigi made Ava a nice bracelet and ring out of playdough which she wore proudly

Daddy and Ava snuggling on a sunny afternoon

On Christmas Eve we finally took Ava to have her picture taken with Santa. Here she is waving to Santa as we wait in line. We didn't get a picture of her and Santa with our camera but in case you missed it on the blog here it is. She now loves to carry her special picture of her and Santa around the house. I never was huge into her getting her picture with Santa before now but I know these pictures will be a great memory for her, especially since she wont actually remember sitting on Santa's lap for the first time. That still blows my mind and makes me sad that she wont have all the fond memories of her eary years.

Right next to Santa's village was a train so we told her that she could ride it after she got her picture with Santa. Gigi was the lucky one that got to squeeze in the train car with her.

The mall trip kept getting better and better.....candy!!!

but that was as close as she got to trying any

Ava adores Bpop and I love this picture of the three of them smiling. Funny story, a couple of months ago she brought me one of Mikey's Economist magazines and kept saying "pop, pop, pop". I didn't understand why she was saying that until I actually looked at it and there was a picture of another Japanese man on the cover. I died laughing!

Checking out all the presents on Christmas morning

{p.s-Where's Holly?}

Good thing her one and only gift from Mommy and Daddy was a huge hit!

This cute little house with a cat family was also a big hit

Mikey and his brother "Uncle Jim" modeling thier "vintage" abercrombie gifts to each other

Surprise! Gigi and Bpop also got a hand print stepping stone

Ava and Gigi were the cheerleaders while daddy and Uncle Jim were skateboarding outside

Yay Daddy, you haven't fallen! He's actually quite good so I guess the snowboarding skills come in handy. I was worried he was going to break some bones with the kinds of tricks I was sure Uncle Jim would teach him.

Whew! That wraps up the recap of our wonderful Christmas! Each person we saw and everything we did made for a very memorable and blessed Christmas. Hope yours was the same!